“It’s not a person named Michelle Fuller,” says Teddy (Jesse Plemons) about the woman who he kidnaps. Emma Stone plays Fuller, the CEO of a company who, according to Teddy, is actually an Andromedan alien plotting to destroy Earth. Before that, they’re warped mirrors of each other, workout routines and all, before their worlds collide. The kidnapping, Chappell Roan needle drop and all, is a gong show that only director Yorgos Lanthimos can give us, and ‘gong show’ is also apt in how Teddy keeps her captive. Teddy juggles that kidnapping with his job making packages for, surprise, Fuller’s chemical company.

Back at Teddy’s home, he runs tests on her, which makes him conclude that she’s of royal alien stock. Because Fuller’s an intelligent woman, she sometimes agrees that she is the alien who Teddy thinks she is. Playing along is one of Fuller’s few tactics that she uses against Teddy and his cousin Don (Adrian Delbis). Her situation gets more urgent as a local police officer, Casey (Stavros Halkias), starts his investigation. While all of this happens, the film flashes back to Teddy losing his mother (Alicia Silverstone) to Fuller’s chemical trials.

In adapting the Korean film Save the Green Planet, Lanthimos investigates Fuller and Teddy’s worlds. Fuller is the kind of person who tells her employees that they can leave early if they finish their work. Populating Fuller’s world are her employees (J. Carmen Galindez Barrera and Vanessa Eng) reacting to her. The kidnapping takes place within Bugonia‘s half hour mark, so viewers see most of how Teddy deals with things. Particularly, there are his bike rides to and from work, those bike rides getting intense like his paranoia.

Bugonia’s depiction of the corporate world dictates the absurd cruelty that comes from Teddy’s conspiracies. And I’m not even sure if cruelty is the right word in a film where Lanthimos’ satire of both upper and lower classes. Fuller’s memo of letting her employees leave work early reeks of the kind of real-life hollow rebranding. Similarly, the queasiness of watching Teddy electrocute Fuller doesn’t stay even hours after watching it on the big screen. I’m trying to examine why I’m reacting to the film this way, receiving it with less emotion. It’s probably because Lanthimos, despite some changes, presents ideas rather than characters.

Usually, a film like Bugonia which presents archetypes over characters is the cinematic version of a death sentence. And even a part of me wonders what this film would be like if Plemons and Stone switch characters. But somehow, Lanthimos makes it work and it’s one of the few tightrope walks in which he succeeds. This is both his most conceptual, wildest film yet it’s also him at his most grounded and logical, if that makes sense. This film is also an acting exercise where two actors want different things and one wins out. This is basically a showcase of Plemons’ talent playing a character building a world view in perpetual reconstruction. I also have one great thing to say about Emma Stone, arguably the greatest actor of my generation.

Bugonia is available to watch in select Canadian theatres.