Bugonia
I gave immense credit to the actors in this film, especially Jesse Plemons, whose character Teddy abducts the CEO of a pharmaceutical company (played by Emma Stone), believing that she’s an alien here to invade/destroy Earth. He’s scary and dangerous, but there are moments where you feel bad for him. He really is a victim of corporate greed, and his sadness and desperation shows through his performance. He has a right to be angry, and whenever he faces off against Stone’s CEO character, the tension is through the roof.
Having said that, I can’t say the film totally held my attention: structurally, it felt a bit repetitive, with the aforementioned face-off scenes occurring multiple times. In each one, Teddy accuses the CEO of her evil alien plot, and she tries to deny and deflect him, until he gets so pissed off that he explodes into violence. Again, these scenes are well-acted and emotionally effective, but I didn’t feel like the story was moving forward.
To fully discuss my feelings about the movie, I’m going to spoil the ending.
The final twist is that Emma Stone’s character is actually an alien. I have to admit I knew that going in, and maybe that’s why the film didn’t totally work for me. All of the moments where we empathize with Teddy, where his pain (if not his behaviour) feels justified, I thought the movie was trying to show us how a hopeless person under the pressures of capitalism can become radicalized. I wished it had gone deeper with the character study. But, since he turns out to be right, his emotional journey seems not to matter as much.