The China Mail - Sympathy for the bedeviled: the likable conspiracy theorist of 'Bugonia'

But when screenwriter Will Tracy sat down to pen his Oscar-nominated script for "Bugonia," he wanted to create a protagonist with a little more nuance.

"The main thing I wanted was the sense of empathy you felt for Teddy," he said of the lead character, played with characteristic bravura by the always-watchable Jesse Plemons.

"It's quite easy to make a version of that story where he's a sort of toxic incel male conspiracy theorist nut who you don't really sympathize with," he told AFP.

"I wanted to do my best to make him be a guy who's... been properly abused by the system."

- Aliens -

"Bugonia" tells the story of Teddy Gatz (Plemons), who -- accompanied by his slow-witted cousin Don -- kidnaps big pharma CEO Michelle Fuller (best actress nominee Emma Stone) because he believes... she is an alien.

In Teddy's mind, Michelle has assumed a powerful position on Earth, which her alien race is exploiting for its own ends.

Over several disturbing but darkly comic scenes, they torture her as she tries to convince them she is human and they are making a big mistake.

But all is not what it seems, and both Stone's character and the organization she works for have questions to answer, including over the death of Teddy's beloved mother.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos skillfully brings viewers along for the ride, stretching and then rewarding their sympathy with Teddy, even as his behavior becomes ever more outlandish.

That is a deliberate choice, says Tracy, because Teddy is not -- or at least not just -- a lunatic.

"He's got a point, and actually, he ends up being right about quite a bit," said Tracy.

"I think he has some legitimate grievances."

- 'Trust' -

The script, which is competing in the best adapted screenplay category, is a reworking of "Save the Green Planet," a 2003 film by Korean writer Jang Joon-hwan.

Tracy said he wanted to respect the source material, but without feeling constricted by it.

"I think I tried not to be too faithful. I didn't want the film sort of in my head, kind of hanging over me," he said.

"So I tried to take a pretty free hand with it and kind of plow my own furrow."

That approach produced a screenplay that attracted the attention of six-time Oscar nominee Lanthimos, whose 2023 fantasy "Poor Things" scooped four statuettes, including best actress for Stone.

Tracy said he was thrilled that the Greek director took up the project, which he wrote about 18 months before Lanthimos was attached.

"When he came on board... he didn't really monkey with the script too much," Tracy said.

"I think what I discovered is that I sort of inadvertently wrote a very Lanthimosian screenplay, because I think our sensibilities were just really aligned."

That includes the need to maintain the ambiguities and the nuance of the film as Tracy wrote it.

"He, I think, wanted to preserve the mystery and also make the kind of film that when you leave the theater, you can go to dinner with the people you saw the movie with, and people could have wildly different opinions about what the ending means," Tracy explained.

Jerskin Fendrix, who is nominated for best original score for the film, said Lanthimos produces extraordinary work because of the trust he places in his collaborators.

"He gives you all the information he thinks you need. It might be very little information -- in my case, it was three words -- and then he lets you run with it," he told AFP.

The Oscars will be handed out in Hollywood on March 15.

Y.Parker--ThChM