Our world is structured around hierarchies. Everything from the media to classism and major corporations is controlled by the rich and powerful of our society, making decisions for a world we all share. We are told that our humanity is what connects us to the kings and queens sitting at the top of these ladders. But oftentimes, this commonality feels lost. We watch our fellow humans destroy the planet, and despite how much we scream in protest, the ones driving this destruction are the ones we cannot reach. With such discrepancies, it is hard to believe that we are all truly one and the same. And maybe we aren’t.
“Bugonia” opens with bees: buzzing around their hive, flowers and queen. An unseen voice narrates this montage, marveling at the beauty of these delicate creatures. But this tone is short-lived, as the narrator soon dives into colony collapse disorder: the rare occurrence of bee hives completely abandoning their queen. They leave everything behind, for no other purpose than to get out. This introduction couldn’t be any more perfect of a setup and parallel to what follows as the film’s narrator and protagonist, Teddy (Jesse Plemons, “Kinds of Kindness”), attempts to abandon, or in this case, eliminate, one of society’s many queens.
Teddy is a lost soul who has been living with his cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis, debut), since his mother was rendered comatose as a result of an unsuccessful clinical trial for an Auxolith drug. He now works in Auxolith’s warehouse, dedicating his sweat and tears to the same company that caused and swiftly covered up the decline of his mother’s health. Teddy is the perfect candidate for conspiracy: lonely, lost and angry. So it makes sense when he falls into the mist of conspiracies surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighboring solar system, mistaking Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone, “Poor Things”), the ultra-successful CEO of Auxolith, for an alien Andromedan sent to infiltrate and destroy the planet. To him, Michelle is a queen bee, ruling over her corporation with performative empathy. Meanwhile, Michelle is complaining behind the scenes about the production of a diversity campaign and passively-aggressively intimidating her employees. But, as we have learned through Teddy, her influence extends far beyond Auxolith, reaching into the lives of the general public and impacting civilians like Teddy and his mother. Dragging Don along with him, Teddy crafts a plan to capture Michelle and put an end to her extraterrestrial rule by kidnapping and using her to make the Andromedans leave Earth.
From the abduction to the finale, most of “Bugonia” takes place in the cluttered basement of Teddy’s childhood home. Alongside Michelle, we learn more and more about his Andromeda theories as he explains his reasons for trapping her in his basement, shaving her hair and covering her in antihistamine cream (which he says will block Andromedan communication). During a series of Teddy’s fruitless interrogations, the film presents a number of humorous moments to pair with the absurdity and, frankly, derangement of the situation. It is hard not to laugh at Michelle’s appalled reactions to Teddy’s theories. But underneath the comedy is a consistent layer of tension that keeps the waters murky. Is Teddy actually insane, ready to break at any moment? Or is Michelle truly a dangerous extraterrestrial, using her cunning manipulation to fool us all? As the moments tick by, Teddy’s Andromedan rabbit hole seems more like a tunnel, and as he travels further through it, it becomes unclear what lies waiting on the other side.
Each turn brings new meaning to the narrative. Teddy and Michelle are on opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. More than just this, though, Michelle has the power to control a major corporation — specifically, the one that ruined Teddy’s life. Whether or not his theories are correct, his labelling Michelle as an alien is a projection of responsibility, one which sidesteps corporate evil as a result of human greed and instead blames it on an extraterrestrial intervention. Director Yorgo Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) flips the script and asks the audience: what if this extraterrestrial power was intended for our own good? Would we still reject its intervention then? And if so, what does that say about us, or about Teddy and his motives? As the ending takes 20 different dramatic turns, we are forced to consider all possibilities and what they might mean for both these characters and ourselves.
Lanthimos delivers a beautifully nuanced dissection of online isolation, societal divide and human nature. On some level, it is hard not to feel for Teddy, living in the remnants of his family’s home, fighting so hard for something to believe in. But as out-of-touch as Michelle is, believing she is an alien opens up a whole new array of questions — ones which shift away from Teddy’s life and point toward a greater statement about our world. Lanthimos allows audiences to peer down every avenue, anticipating new outcomes as the facts change, before hitting you with the finale. In the last five minutes of the movie, the style takes a major turn and the story comes to a decisive conclusion. However, its lack of ambiguity doesn’t erase the effect of the past two hours. Lanthimos allows you to wander through his thought experiment, but he still knows where he wants you to end up, a certainty not all directors can bring to the table. It makes his storytelling that much bolder and, consequently, powerful.
“Bugonia” tells the story of a human drowning in life’s mysteries and creating conspiracy outlets as a coping mechanism for his own pain. The film takes this idea to the extreme, with even its title stemming from a Greek myth — a sort of conspiracy in and of itself — that believed bees were spontaneously generated from the body of a dead ox. Roman beliefs then added another layer to the story, explaining that bees were the reincarnated souls of society’s hardest-working citizens. The story of the bee is one of the best metaphors for death, rebirth and class — one that humans have believed in for hundreds of years. So when we are presented with Teddy, one of the many bees in Michelle’s hive, we are dealing with subject matter heavier than extraterrestrial life: Teddy is the revolutionary, however questionable his methods, who rejects the status quo and abandons the hive. But the uncontrollable power balances in society are not unraveled so simply, forcing us to question whether colony collapse disorder can truly succeed if the queen herself doesn’t collapse with it.
As the ending unfolds, “Bugonia” puts humanity into perspective. It presents a scenario in which we lose control over our own species and, with it, the world. The final shot circles back to the bees, asking viewers to question whether they can survive without their queens to guide them. And while jaws certainly hit the floor, the story doesn’t end there. I found myself contemplating the film’s themes days later, unable to let go of Lanthimos’ thought-provoking commentary on our own world. Our self-populated echo chambers are proof of a world more divided than united; divisions in class, power and even care for our planet run deep, creating more platforms for our leaders to disagree than agree. And while “Bugonia” has no blunt call to action, it shines a mirror, forcing us to ask: “Are we part of the problem?”
Daily Arts Writer Abigail Weinberg can be reached at weinab@umich.edu.
