Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

Sunk Cost Fallacy is the feeling that you need to remain loyal to something because you’ve already sunk so much time, money, or other resources into it. It’s the reason why investors continue throwing money at failing businesses or people remain in long-term relationships that only hurt them. It’s why viewers watched ten seasons of The Walking Dead despite it being terrible after season five. It’s why we, as a society, remain so committed to the idea of a global economic system, even though most of the world’s population struggles with money. Sunk Cost Fallacy is the reason so many people still believe in the goodness of humanity even after millennia of racism, sexism, murder, genocide, and Fast and Furious movies.

Bugonia‘s Michelle Fuller is another example of a CEO that feels the need to put themselves everywhere.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

Following the collapse of his family’s beekeeping business, his “colony” as he calls it, Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) fell into an ever-shrinking echo chamber. With only his autistic cousin Donny (Aiden Delbris) and his co-workers at the packing plant for pharmaceutical company Auolith remaining, Teddy finds community in conspiracy podcasts and online forums which fuel the paranoia ingrained into him through his mother (an unrecognizable Alicia Silverstone). Through interactions with his co-workers we learn of the hard times faced by everyone around him, particularly the older woman whom the company refuses to compensate for a work-related injury, and the general discontent of workers who spend their lunch break in view of a portrait of Auolith CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a woman whose inhuman level of polish taunts the struggle of those who make her company function.

Rather than an innocuous beginning, director Yorgos Lanthimos opens Bugonia with the same sense of creeping unease that permeated his 2017 psychological horror film Killing of a Sacred Deer. Musical crescendos which seem ill-matched to events on screen subtly prepare the audience for the times when sound and image will meet, allowing the film to mutate into new forms without becoming jarring, even as the imagery itself increases in intensity and unease.  As with his previous absurdist comedy The Lobster, Lanthimos again offers the audience a chance to laugh, albeit uncomfortably, at the many flaws of humanity, from the physical absurdity of Teddy and Donny trying to subdue Michelle to Teddy’s Dunning-Kruger-like notion that he and his cousin are uniquely enlightened among all of humankind. It’s this bleak, macabre humor which makes Bugonia stand-out from other recent efforts in psychological horror. Even as the film becomes darker, and the actions more dire, there is always some absurd image or sardonic comment there to keep the film palatable. A distasteful exchange with a former abuser is undercut by that abuser’s addiction to coconut cake and positive affirmation that they abused only one person and absolutely no one else. It is a bleak portrayal of humanity, made all the more poignant by how authentic it feels.

Emma Stone’s manicured image plays well with Bugonia‘s themes.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

As Teddy, Plemons adds yet another to ever-increasing cadre of creeps (Breaking Bad, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Civil War, just about everything he’s done), capturing the mixture of paranoia and over-confidence found in a large portion of mostly white men who feel society has wronged them. The conviction in Plemons’s tone and presence brings a sense of foreboding menace to lines that could otherwise come across as silly. Worse still is the way in which he uses intelligence, love, and guilt to manipulate his clearly challenged cousin, pushing Donny to do things he knows are wrong. Yet, rather than wallow in horribleness, screenwriter Will Tracy complicates Teddy (and Donny) through a series of striking and surrealistic flashbacks which change Teddy from unrepentant terror to potential victim. This is a man who has spent his entire life being told one thing, and it is the only thing he has left in this world.

Stone, on the other hand, masterfully portrays the faux sympathy of a modern CEO well-versed in the practice of empty corporate activism. The type of boss who would totally allow the entire office to leave early on a Friday afternoon… but only if they want to… knowing that it could potentially hurt their quarterly earnings… which could then lead to layoffs… but extra time with the family is important… although having a job to support that family is also important… so, sure… it’s okay to leave early on Friday… but only if they really want to. In Michelle, we see the juxtaposition of Teddy, in terms both of social standing and position within the film. She’s hardworking, intelligent, successful, and socially responsible, complete with this year’s most diverse (so to speak) on-screen vocabulary, uttering both “shibboleth” and “verisimilitude.” At the same time, CEO Fuller is detached, calculated, manipulative, entirely disinterested in the losers she exploits, and with a personality that feels market-tested to appeal to as many quadrants as possible. Yet, like Teddy, she too has spent her entire existence investing in a particular ethos. She can no more afford to give that up that she can afford to stop breathing.

Another example of ACAB.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

It’s to the film’s tremendous credit that both Teddy and Michelle come off as equally contemptible and sympathetic. Teddy, in particular, is initially set to be the villain, and in many ways remains so throughout the film. Yet it isn’t difficult to imagine the amount of emotionally and psychological trauma he’s endured, beginning with the stories his mother told him as child – real or imagined doesn’t matter, they’re real to him – on through the news sources, internet “researchers,” and conspiracy podcasters who peddle paranoia between ads for whole milk and brain-enhancement pills, profiting off exploiting Teddy and the thousands of others that they’ve conditioned to dismiss anyone who thinks differently than them. The years of repetition in his media, and general degradation in his environment, make it little wonder why Teddy would wrap himself in the relative comfort of knowing that he isn’t to blame for his plight. We’ve seen in the real world the extremes to which people are willing to go when confronted with the target of their ire. We’ve also seen the extremes to which people are willing to deny their own experience when it contradicts the one they’ve imagined.

Sunk Cost Fallacy is the feeling that you need to remain loyal to something because you’ve already sunk so much time, money, or other resources into it.

It’s easy to image the type of websites and podcasts Teddy subscribes to.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

Millions of people, particularly on the political right, convinced themselves that Donald Trump would release files that would expose an entire cabal of global elites, particularly on the political left, who sexually abused young girls. They spent years screaming for the release of these files. Their candidate himself campaigned on the promise of releasing these files. Trump, their champion, built up in their minds as the lone arbiter of truth and thus they follow with a cult-like devotion, talked endlessly about releasing these files, exposing the secrets of the those named therein – all of whom are conveniently his personal enemies – and denying the fact that he himself appears in dozens if not hundreds of photos and videos along with the name the files are named for. Then, when the time finally came, when his cult had granted him unparalleled and unlawful levels of power… he said the files didn’t matter.

He told his cult to stop talking about the files.

He had his agents, those who survived the purge of the disloyal, to scrub his name from the files.

He delayed and delayed and delayed, spending months saying that the files didn’t exist or that the files were all a hoax or that anyone who supported them was an enemy or that everyone who isn’t him in the files that didn’t exist must be investigated.

It was only then when some of his supporters started to think that maybe, after years of believing that everyone else in the world was lying, just maybe, a convicted felon who had been found liable for sexual assault, was lying to them.

It’s eerie that Bugonia would open widely in the United States approximately one month before Congress would finally vote on to release the Epstein Files.

The cycle of manipulation continues.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

Sunk Cost Fallacy is the reason why after years of being lied to, of being manipulated, of being told one thing while witnessing another, of being told one thing and then being told another, people are still willing to be lied to. It’s the reason Trump voters still support someone they know is stealing money from their communities, ruining their economy, profiting from his office, taking away their healthcare, and lying to them every day. It’s the reason Fox News viewers keep watching even after their chosen news source paid almost 800 million dollars for lying to its viewers. It’s because these people, these followers, these believers, have invested too much of themselves into these causes to ever admit that they were wrong. Because to admit that they were wrong is to admit that they believed in lies.
It’s to admit that they were treated as fools.
It’s to admit that they are fools.

Emma Stone shaving her head demonstrates that people are willing to go a long way for things they believe in.
Image: Focus Features & CJ ENM.

Bugonia is a film built upon people who have invested too much to ever be wrong. Both Teddy and Michelle base their lives, their entire beings, on one thought. One thought that they can’t give up because to give it up would be to admit that they weren’t as smart as they think they are.

As bleak as it is, Bugonia is a very funny film. It’s dark. It’s violent. It’s ugly, at times. It offers no great hope for humanity. One of it’s only positive themes comes in reminding us that individuals don’t have to exist in extremes. Both good and bad can in fact exist in the same person at the same time. It’s a reminder of the foolishness that dictates too many of our lives. That we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become so invested in one thing that we surrender all others.

And yet, there’s also the chance that that one thing could be right. But how do we know? Maybe Sunk Cost Fallacy makes fools of us all. If we are fools, why not laugh? Bugonia shows us the humor in humanity’s many flaws.

If we can’t be united be that, then maybe we don’t deserve to be.

Rating 4 / 5