Displaying items by tag: Alicia Silverstone

BUGONIA

US/Greece, 2025, 118 minutes, Colour.

Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Deblis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

The film doesn’t exactly explain the meaning of the title, though it gives some visual hints in its focus on bees.  Bugonia refers to an ancient Greek and Roman belief that bees could spontaneously generate freshly life from the carcass of a young bull or cow.

The screenwriter, Will Tracy (touches of the bizarre with The Menu, The Regime) offers his comment: I think also, we just liked the ambiguity of the title as well. It kinda sounds like an insect, kinda sounds like a flower, kinda sounds alien, but also sounds like a place, maybe, that could be on Earth. It might also sound like an illness that someone might have. So, I think the non-specificity of it was also kind of attractive.

And it does start with a close-up of flowers, bees, and two cousins working the hives. And where it goes from there is quite unpredictable!

We are introduced to Teddy, conspiracy theorist par excellence, a striking performance from Jesse Plemons, straggly-looking and dressed, demanding the collaboration of his cousin (Aidan Deblis), setting up in his farmhouse basement quite an extraordinary IT communications centre – all in the aid of kidnapping and interrogating the CEO of a pharmaceutical company (Michelle), convinced that she is an alien, wanting her to admit it, torturing her for the confession, motivated by the illness of his mother and the use of experimental drugs to heal her.

Teddy also works during the day in the very ordinary role of packaging pharmaceuticals to be sent out to customers. He also has an old friend who is now in the police force, unfortunately trying to ingratiate himself in Teddy’s favour at quite the wrong time.

And, of course, there is Emma Stone who has had striking roles and an Oscar-winning performance working in Lanthimos’ films. She is an assured businesswoman, trying shrewdly to influence Teddy, but more skilful in her dealings with him, admitting, finally, as he wants, that she is an alien, subservient to her Emperor, to make contact with him in three days when there will be a lunar eclipse. Definitely the world of conspiracy theorists.

So, the main drama is in the interactions between Teddy and Michelle, his desperate rush to his mother’s bedside hoping for a cure, the sudden suspicion for the audience that Michelle is so convincing she could be an alien.

The film is based on a Korean film, How to Save the Planet, incorporating its critique of what humans are doing to the world, step by step towards its destruction, and opening up quite an extraordinary explanation of evolution as well as a different perspective on an apocalyptic future, and whether the world might end with a bang or, as T.S.Elliot suggested, with the equivalent of a whimper.

As with his other films, the director offers us strange combinations of the real and the absurd, and one extraordinary shock where the audience might find that, literally, the jaw drops (as it did for this reviewer).

There is a appointment irony with the use of the final song, Where have all the flowers gone…? And the haunting refrain into the credits, When will they ever learn, and the music then stops.

1. The explanations for the title? Flowers, bees, a town, a planet…?
2. The adaptation of a Korean film and its message about saving the planet? With some melodramatic, absurdist, takes on the theme?
3. The work of the director, ironies, his working with the stars in other films? This achievement? The visual style, the pounding score, the use of songs?
4. The opening, flowers, pollen and nectar, Teddy and Don going to work with the bees? The later discussion about bees, apiaries, construction and destruction? New life from rotting flesh?
5. The portrait of Teddy, Jesse Plemons’ performance, age, look, clothes, cycling to work, at the headquarters, the parcels, the conversations? The revelation about the story of his mother, the experiments, in hospital, the failure of the experiment, his visit to his mother, thinking that he was healing her, her death? The impact, his desperately not wanting Michelle to name his mother? His angers?
6. Teddy and his relationship with Don, Don and the actor on the spectrum, the performance, believing Teddy, trying to raise questions, put down, the capture of Michelle, on guard, with the rifle? The discussions with Michelle, her playing on his psychology, his wanting to escape – and the suddenness of his shooting himself?
7. Teddy, conspiracy theories, his science, construction of his centre, his belief in aliens, that Michelle was an alien, out to destroy the humans? Working for her, his mother and the hospital, abducting her?
8. Michelle, and Emma Stone’s performance, CEO, at home, exercise, medication and the contrast with Teddy and his tablets? Her lifestyle, manner, with her staff? Abducted?
9. In the cellar, her head shaved because have provided for communications, the lotion, bound, over the period, the discussions, the interrogation, getting her to admit that she was an alien, different attempts, recorded, played back, and finally deciding to play along with Teddy, the explanations, the Emperor, the whole background of evolution over the millennia, human evolution, failures, the possibility of saving humanity, the Emperor beginning to think humanity was not worth saving?
10. The screenplay, the audience not thinking that Michelle was an alien, but in her discussions, the screenplay even making the audience wonder whether she really was an alien?
11. Casey, police, babysitting Teddy, wanting friendship, coming to the house, coming in, suspicions, the discussions about the abduction, going out to the fields, Teddy killing him?
12. The buildup to the climax, Teddy and his desperation, cycling to the hospital and back, filling his mother with the antifreeze? His power over Michelle, her leading him on, the promise that he would meet the Emperor, going to headquarters, her injuries and limping, the wig, greeting people, his having the rifle, accompanying her?
13. Her explanation of the closet, the entry to the portal? His believing her, wanting to go? The explosives? Her shrewdness, his going into the closet, her looking in, the explosion?
14. The fact that Michelle was an alien, going to the Emperor, the alien creatures, their appearances, clothing, the final judgement against humanity?
15. The collage of all the deaths, human life suddenly stopping wherever they were, the pathos of the world ending so quietly? And the animals surviving? Where have all the flowers gone? When will they ever learn?

REPTILE

US, 2023, 134 minutes, Colour.

Benicio del Toro, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone, Eric Bogosian, Dominick Lombardo, Frances Fisher, Ato Essandoh, Michael Pitt, Karl Glusman, Thad Luckinbill.

Directed by Grant Singer.

Reptile – the audience will have to work out their understanding of the title, though there is a suggestion at one stage of a sloughed snakeskin.

This is a murder mystery. But the film is, strongly, a police investigation. The setting is a New England town, the focus on real estate and agents, and, as the complications of the plot develop, issues of drug dealing and corruption.

Benicio del Toro plays an upright detective, dedicated to his work, his relationship with his wife, Judy, played by Alicia Silverstone, who can be hostess in the traditional sense but also collaborates with her husband in his investigations and with suggestions for solutions. There is a very good cast led by Justin Timberlake has Will, and he is a real estate hotshot, Frances Fisher as his mother, Michael Pitt as Ely, an eccentric victim of real estate dealings, Eric Bogosian as the police commander.

When Will’s partner and fiancee is murdered, he is under suspicion as is his mother who is very dominating of him and partner in their agency. There is also the murdered woman’s ex-husband, who responds in a very surly way to the investigations. Then there is the always suspicious Ely, a potential murderer.

In many ways, the plot is quite convoluted and requires audience attention, the screenplay not always filling in some details about characters and their behaviour, the audience having to be alert to pick up the connections.

It is also complicated in its portrait of the personal struggles of the detective, his career, doing the right thing, relationship with his wife, with friends (especially well and offers him a well-paying security job connected with the real estate agency), and his commander who is suffering from MS.

Some excellent ingredients, but demanding in audience attention.

1. The title, the references, the sloughed skin?
2. A New England town, homes, streets, luxury mansions, police precincts, police clubs, restaurants, houses in the woods? Feel? Musical score? Theme songs, Angel of the morning? Knocking at my door…?
3. The setting, the real estate industry, will and Summer, showing people around, the language of the agents, promotions, Will, the clashes with Summer, with his mother, going to the convention, his speech? Praise? Going home, the clash with Summer? The next day, going to the house, findings Summer dead? The police, the interrogations, the neighbours, the witness? Ely being present?
4. Introduction to Tom, the card game, the friends, the police, the banter? Introduction to Judy, to Robert Allen and his command, news of MS?
5. Tom, age, experience, personality, wanting to be a cop, integrity, the past, the investigation, colleagues wary? Support of Robert Allen? The scene of the crime, suspicions, the interviews with Will, his explanations, personality, smooth? The interrogation of Summer’s friend, the scene at the pool, her testimony? The information about the ex-husband, tracking him down, the visit, his surly response, the drug background, the interrogation, the later visit, the gun, Tom shooting, his death? The visit to Ely, suspicions, his behaviour?
6. The background of the real estate company, the domination of Wil’ls mother, Will and Summer, the arrangements, the deals, the information about the transactions, Tom finding the documents, further information, arrangements and covers?
7. The implication of drugs in dealing, Tom examining the drugs in quarantine, the packaging, the information about the agency and the drug connections? Wally, offering Tom the job for security, the ring and badge? Wally and the connection?
8. Tom, his relationship with Judy, love, her contributions to the cases, suggestions to follow? Tom listening into her phone calls?
9. Tom, the consequences of shooting the ex-husband, hearing, the support of his workers, the issue of the metal, his not wanting it, the final announcement?
10. Tom, his working with Cleary, friendship, interactions, the work, at the office? Tom and his surveillance, cameras, phones and listening in?
11. The birthday party for Robert Allen, the issue of the car, Judy and her comments, finding the car in the garage, talking with Robert Allen? Coming back the next day, coming up the drive, Allen being shot, Tom accompanied by his superior, the Superior and the gun, Wally, the deaths?
12. Will, the golf course, his being arrested?
13. The film as a story of small town police investigation, business and corruption, police corruption, drugs?