Humanity Is Doomed (Based on the Movies I've Seen Lately)

Today, a few thoughts on Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia (in theaters now) and Kathryn Bigelow's House of Dynamite (on Netflix).

In Bugonia, Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a down-on-his-luck warehouse worker who becomes convinced that he's uncovered an intergalactic conspiracy against planet Earth. Teddy believes that an alien species, the Andromedans, have infiltrated the human race and that he must bargain with them in order to save the planet. To do this, he and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), who's the CEO of pharmaceutical company Auxolith. They shave her hair so that she can't communicate with her mothership, lock her in their basement, and start making demands that she negotiate with her alien species. Michelle is not terribly cooperative, as you might imagine.

What Bugonia does so effectively is capture this specific moment of American unravelling. A massive percentage of our population believes in conspiracy theories and is immersed in a series of endless echo chambers. They are seemingly beyond the reach of reason or logic. Many of them are also in charge of vital institutions.

Meanwhile the decisions left to everyone else have severe trade-offs. Deny the conspiracies and you risk angering your opponents further. Agree to them (even as a ruse) and you risk losing your own grip on reality and perhaps your own humanity. Watching Emma Stone navigate these seemingly impossible decisions is one of the pleasures of Bugonia.

But while Stone is great as Michelle – a CEO who is incredibly displeased with the situation she's been placed in – it's Plemons who is the star of the film. In appearance and performance, Plemons plays Teddy with a sweaty desperation that is simultaneously sympathetic and dangerous. Plemons has been honing his dark side for years now. The first time I really felt like I understood what he was capable of was in Breaking Bad, where he played the pest exterminator and gang enforcer Todd Alquist. He's also been chilling in Black Mirror, Civil War, and I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Here, he's not so much a sociopathic murderer as he is someone who really needs this Andromedan thing to be true because it's literally all he has left. Someone who's operating from that position is wildly unpredictable and capable of anything. It's a tremendous performance and one that I won't soon forget.

I don't think Lanthimos is terribly optimistic about our disposition and chances as a species, perhaps rightfully so. With Bugonia, he's operating at the top of his game, crafting a razor sharp satire of the human condition that's bleak as hell. I won't reveal how Bugonia ends but I will say that this is a movie that kept me guessing until its final shocking moments. I will reveal that the film gave me an overwhelming sense that humanity is well and truly fucked. If that was the goal of this film, I think it's probably a masterpiece.

The following will contain SPOILERS for Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite. You've been warned.

Speaking of humanity being totally fucked.

Even when I don't like Kathryn Bigelow's films, I'm a huge fan of her craft. She is one of the finest action filmmakers working today, but one who is also highly interested in how state violence is deployed both here and abroad. I don't think any of her films are particularly incisive about those matters, but when I watch movies like Detroit or Zero Dark Thirty, I at least get a sense that the filmmaker is trying to grapple with these issues in an earnest and meaningful way.

All of this makes Bigelow's latest project, A House of Dynamite, mildly baffling. A House of Dynamite imagines what would happen if a nuclear missile of unknown origin were to launch at the United States. With only about 20 minutes to react, every arm of the U.S. government springs into action – or tries to at least.

One of the most vivid reading experiences I've ever had is reading Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario, a non-fiction book which describes, minute-by-minute, what would happen in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. It's horrifying to contemplate how easily such a thing could happen and how world-ending and consequential such an event would be. Moreover, given that humanity has now developed the technology to engineer its own global demise, you really want someone who has an even keel and great equanimity in charge of deciding whether or not to push the "retaliate" button.

As such, I really appreciate what A House of Dynamite is trying to do. We see, in excruciating detail, how woefully unprepared many people in the government are for such an attack. We grasp how difficult it would be to make life and death decisions in literally the highest pressure environment imaginable. And we get the sense that everyone needs to be ready for such a scenario at all times.

But the film makes a few massive missteps. Its biggest one is telling these events from three different perspectives. We see what happens as the Situation Room and NORTHCOM try to react to the missile, then we see the events mostly from the perspective of the Deputy National Security Adviser, then we finally see the events from the perspective of the President. The first chapter is gripping, as we're in the same position as the characters trying to figure out what is going on and how to respond. Bigelow's skill is on display even in these mundane environments (mostly meeting rooms with lots of laptops and computer screens), ramping up the tension to nearly unbearable levels.

But the movie rapidly runs into diminishing returns, as each chapter does virtually nothing to illuminate its themes further. By the time we've reached the end, there is no more mystery and barely any sympathy left for these characters. We already understand the predicament they're in. We understood it about an hour ago.

Another big issue is the movie's depiction of the U.S. government. To put it bluntly, it's a Sorkin-esque West Wing fantasy in which mostly competent technocrats are running everything. You could have made this movie 15 to 20 years ago and probably changed nothing. I'm not saying our current government wouldn't face the same issues that these characters face, but I question the relevancy of this film given everything that's changed recently. When Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim were conceiving of this project, I doubt that they believed it would be emerging into the current political environment. It's a calculation that makes the film feel woefully out of date.

Finally, I have to mention the ending. Or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof. Each chapter concludes with the President deciding whether or not to launch a counter attack, but then cutting to black before the decision is actually made. We get to the end of the film, expecting to finally see the actual decision but the film leaves us without any resolution to the film's plot. We don't know if the initial nuclear attack worked, we don't know who it was from, and we don't know what the President did in response.

I understand the objective of such an ending. The point of the film has already been made: In real life, there will probably be a bunch of unknowns and no good options. Therefore, there's no reason to have a scene showing that Chicago was annihilated, followed by the President deciding to launch missiles obliterating North Korea. What would that serve other than to satisfy the audience's inherent desire for, I dunno, resolution of any kind in the movies we watch?

But if that's the case, then the ending makes it clear that this film can be primarily understood as a didactic exercise. It can therefore be measured as such, and still found wanting.

Next Stop: Portugal

The newsletter has been sparse lately because I've been busy preparing for a fairly big life change: Over the course of the next few months, I will be spending a substantial amount of time in Portugal and other parts of Europe. To follow along and receive an email every time I publish a new video, be sure to subscribe at davechentravels.com.

Other Stuff David Chen Has Made

• My wife and I reviewed Slow Horses Season 5 for Decoding TV. Check it out.
• Also on Decoding TV, I had a lovely time talking with Kit Lazer about Task on HBO. Listen here.
• Also also on Decoding TV, Patrick and I discussed the conclusion of Gen V season 2 with Jessie Earl. Fun chat!

• Here's my immediate reaction to watching Bugonia.