Film reviews: Bugonia leans too hard into whimsy for its heavy subject matter

Plus: Palestine 36 is a gripping, tragic drama; Shelby Oaks is a low-fi but effectively creepy horror

Emma Stone in 'Bugonia.'

• Bugonia
• ★★★☆☆
• Cinematic release

The prospect of ‘techno-enslavement’ may seem remote to most, but Teddy (Jesse Plemons) is taking no chances as Bugonia (15A) begins. 

A farmer horrified by Colony Collapse Disorder and the catastrophic decimation of the world’s bee population, Teddy and his simple-minded cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) set out to counter ‘pure corporate evil’ by abducting Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of Auxolith, a Big Pharma company with a nasty reputation for experimental drugs that kill more than they cure. 

It is at this point, however, that Teddy’s sterling efforts on behalf of the human race go a little awry. 

Michelle, expecting a ransom demand, is dumbfounded to learn that Teddy believes her to be an alien from the Andromeda system, and that he is insisting Michelle introduce him to her emperor at the next lunar eclipse. Adapted by Will Tracy from Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet! (2003), with Yorgos Lanthimos directing, Bugonia is a blackly comic satire that never fully makes clear what its satire is aimed at. 

The obvious target is Teddy and his paranoid delusions about alien invasion; his absolute commitment to ‘fight for our self-worth’ is an honourable one, of course, but his notions are so preposterous that it’s very difficult to take his character seriously. 

That’s not to take away from Jesse Plemons’s performance, which is unsettlingly powerful in terms of Teddy’s single-minded devotion to his cause and his ability to manipulate the malleable Don, who has a low IQ but a strong moral instinct. 

Meanwhile, Emma Stone is icily brilliant as the amoral CEO who gradually realises that she will need to meet Teddy on his terms, however ridiculous they might seem, if she is to survive her ordeal.

Ultimately, though, the film leans too hard on the whimsical absurdity of Teddy’s fantasy. Given the importance of the topics touched upon in the early stages, it feels like a wasted opportunity. 

(theatrical release)

Palestine 36

• Palestine 36
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Palestine 36 (12A) stars Karim Daoud Anaya as Yusuf, a young man who flits between his rural village and the rarefied political world of Jerusalem as Palestinian resistance to British colonial rule erupts into open rebellion. 

As High Commissioner Waucher (Jeremy Irons) tries to keep a lid on the uprising, and the brutal Captain Wingate (Robert Aramayo) enacts a series of reprisals against anyone resisting the influx of Jewish settlers fleeing Europe and persecution, the fuse is lit on a powder keg with the potential to blow the Middle East apart. 

Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir, Palestine 36 largely depicts the events of 1936 as a binary conflict between the Palestinians and the British. 

It’s one that explores a variety of perspectives on both sides, however, including those of the young British diplomat Hopkins (Billy Howle), the Palestinian journalist Khuloud (Yasmine Al Massri), the pro-Arab Christian priest Father Boulos (Jalal Altawil), and the ruthless British Army veteran Tegart (Liam Cunningham), who is parachuted in to suppress the Palestinian uprising by any means necessary. 

Parallels are drawn with Ireland’s fight for independence, and particularly when Tegart insists that the same ‘mistakes’ will not be made in Palestine. 

The result is a gripping drama shot through with a tragic sense of foreboding. (theatrical release)

Shelby Oaks

• Shelby Oaks
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Shelby Oaks (16s) revolves around the disappearance in 2008 of the paranormal investigator Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) as she investigated the Ohio ‘ghost town’ of the movie’s title. 

Riley’s film-making collaborators, the team behind a hugely successful YouTube channel, were found savagely murdered, so what happened to Riley? 

Twelve years later, Riley’s sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) discovers some long-lost documentary footage of Riley’s final days, and sets out to discover the truth.

Written by Sam Liz and Chris Stuckmann, with Stuckmann directing, Shelby Oaks is a low-fi but effectively creepy horror that starts as something of a parody on the ‘found footage’ sub-genre but gradually builds to a tension-racked tale of the grotesque. 

(theatrical release)