Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Bugonia is a remake of Save the Green Planet!, though in many ways it’s far less out there than the 2003 South Korean original. And while the basic premise—a conspiracy theorist kidnaps a powerful executive he believes to be an alien planning to destroy Earth—is the same in both films, the nuances of what a conspiracy theorist looks and acts like have been tweaked to serve an America, circa 2025, version of that story.
In a new interview with Deadline, Bugonia screenwriter Will Tracy keyed in on the character of Teddy, played with just the right jittery, damaged yet determined energy by Jesse Plemons. Some of his most helpful research came from simply visiting websites that Teddy himself might bookmark and return to.
“I did spend a little bit of time on [Reddit], and maybe not even for research for the film. [Because of] my own weird search for knowledge and answers or something, or some confusion, or maybe a need to understand what people are saying, to feel connected to something … I kind of find myself dipping into those quarters anyway, as an observer,” Tracy said. “So I did quite a bit of that of Reddit and YouTube comments, and even a bit of 4Chan, which was quite hot at the time, but to a certain extent, I didn’t want to make Teddy into kind of a composite of those, whatever the disorders du jour were, I wanted to make a guy who felt like he had his own thing. Even ‘incel,’ which feels culturally valid to call him that in some ways, well, he’s literally not, he’s voluntarily celibate. He’s quite purposeful in that sense.”
He continued. “I think the other thing I probably had in my head was, and this has been definitely reinforced since with a few recent events, but whenever there’s a thing like this, whether it’s a domestic terrorist or a shooter of some kind, or an assassin, or whatever it is, there’s now, of course, that immediate cultural reaction to sort of assign blame to the other side for that, like, ‘That’s one of theirs,’ or, ‘That’s clearly a right-wing nut job,’ or, ‘That’s a leftist loon.’ And then, of course, we watch what happens. Inevitably, the cliche, it seems to always happen, is that the information comes in and it’s, ‘They’re an anti-fascist registered Republican gun-lover who identifies as non-binary.’ It corresponds to no clear category at all.”
“And so that was kind of in my head too, that this is someone who maybe cycled through a bunch of different things and didn’t find a story that appealed to them, and so they had to create their own.”
Of course, in Teddy’s case, his wild ideas are actually correct. Emma Stone’s character, Michelle, is eventually revealed to be an alien. Trying to decide whether or not Teddy is dangerously unstable—or if Michelle is indeed plotting the planet’s demise—is a great part of the movie’s fun. The fact that Teddy feels so alarmingly accurate only enhances that mystery, especially when you find out the truth in the end.
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