Glen Weldon (2:14)

Uh huh.

Stephen Thompson (2:15)

What did you think of Begonia?

Glen Weldon (2:17)

I mean, I enjoyed it because of course I did. I'm someone who's famously in the tank for this filmmaker. I would place it as mid tier Lanthimos though, because for a variety of reasons, this doesn't seem to me to be, I guess what we'd call a expression of this guy, his vibe, his sensibility. I mean, the reason that films like Dogtooth and Killing of Sacred Deer and Kinds of Kindness, which I was out here in these streets last year defending, they feel Much more satisfying to me than some of his more popular films like the Favorite and Poor Things, both of which got pelted with Oscars, is because he didn't write the Favorite and he didn't write Poor Things. He didn't write this. And when he writes and directs his own stuff, like Dogtooth and Sacred Deer and Kinds of Kindness and Folks, which for me is one of my favorite movies of all time and certainly my favorite of his movies, it comes with his whole bag of bs, right? It comes with a very mannered. Some would say mannered, I would say characteristic style kind of dialogue that's hilariously stilted, delivered with a flat affect, almost a monotone. So you get all kinds of emotions bubbling underneath the surface that the characters never seem to be able to latch onto. Also, let's not forget the bleakness, as you mentioned.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (3:24)

Oh, my God.

Glen Weldon (3:24)

To me, it's a very funny, Charles Burns, Chris Ware extreme form of bleakness. So he cannot do that in this film, that affectless affect, because he wants us to be in that basement alongside her, making the same kind of assessments, calculations, shrewd, figuring things out that she's doing in her situation that we imagine we would in her situation. For the film to work, it can exist in this kind of hermetically sealed bubble that the films he writes and directs do. And so to me, it's just not as definably him when I realized that circular logic. Cause I'm saying, oh, he's not doing the thing I like him doing. Therefore he's not being true to himself. And I want him to be able to grow as a filmmaker. But I think there's a coldness here that belongs in a film like the Lobster, that here it kind of interposes itself between us and the story. Because the world of this film is attempting to replicate ours. It's not trying to be its own thing. It's still lanthimos. It's still weird. It's still got someone at the screening I attended shouting the F was that at the end? Which is what I want from this guy. That's what I want.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (4:27)

I'm with that guy.

Aisha Harris (4:28)

I'm with that guy.

Glen Weldon (4:29)

Yes, but still mid tier. Also, we'll talk about the ending in vague terms. The ending didn't work for me, but it's somebody else's terms.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (4:38)

I can take that on. You know, let me start with. I actually liked Favorite a lot, but I also liked Lobster and Killing of the Secret Deer. I just think this film is so un Nuanced, like capitalism, bad but then also incel behavior is bad, but it becomes like this. Us versus them, good versus bad. And then I say this knowing this is a bizarre film, which obviously we can't, like, give away much of. But I really wanted more nuance and, like, complications in the way we see the world. And, you know, it is a remake of a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet. And I just think these things meant different things. A guy in suburban America sitting on a computer has tinfoil on his window panes. These things meant different things in 2003. And like you said, Glenn, when you do this in 2025, they kind of become, like, very bad metaphors. And I really missed the rich, complicated, nuanced storytelling that I have learned to enjoy in Lanthimos films.

Stephen Thompson (5:51)

Okay, how about you, Aisha?

Aisha Harris (5:52)

Well, if Glenn is the Lanthimos correspondent, I would put my cape on and say, like, I'm a small C Lanthos correspondent. Like, I'm also more or less in the tank for him. Although his last film, Kinds of Kindness, was where I kind of started to feel like, okay, this is testing my limits. And also his creative partnership with Emma Stone is also testing my limits. How much more torture is he gonna put this woman through on screen? Like, she almost seems to enjoy it.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (6:21)

I really don't like that. Like, she's in so much pain. There's that one scene where you don't even see her, but, like, your skin is crawling and you want to yell.

Aisha Harris (6:32)

Yeah. And look, I liked this for the most part. Although at the time that we're taping this, it's been like, exactly a week or a little bit more than a week since I've seen it, and I'm still not sure where I fall. And Glenn kind of gets into this. But, like, the thing about Lanthimos movies, for the most part, is that they're all about world building and creating their own world. And so I'm struggling now. And also seeing that this is a movie that Ari Aster produced, shocking. I have so many feelings about Ari Aster that I don't fall in line with a lot of people who really are in the tank for him. And, you know, I don't know how much input Ari Aster actually had in this movie, but just that alone tells me, okay, this might not be quite for me, what it comes down to for me is that this is a movie. And it's really hard right now to make a movie that can both feel as though it is copy and pasting our current landscape, but Also transcends it in a way or does something more. Because it's really hard right now to not look at the news and not live in this world and feel as though everything has just become a satire in real life. And to be able to present that on film in this time. Maybe I'll appreciate this more five to ten years from now when we have a little bit more of hindsight. And I do think this achieves something more interesting than Eddington, Ari Aster's film from earlier this year, which is also in many ways trying to get at this moment. Even though it's set in 2020, it's still kind of pulling from that same bag. What wins this over for me is the performances. Emma Stone is fantastic. Jesse Plemons.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (8:06)

The Jesse Plemons. Oh my God.

Aisha Harris (8:07)

Friggin terrifying. And so good. He's just so convincing as that guy. Like the way he's able to transform from performance to performance. It seems like he's lost a lot of weight. His hair is scraggly. He looks like who I would expect someone like this to act like would. And my goodness, it was convincing. So I'm kind of all over the place on this. I'm sorry, that's not a better answer.

Glen Weldon (8:28)

But okay, Steven, tell us what to think.

Aisha Harris (8:30)

Steven, tell us. Oh, yes, tell us.

Stephen Thompson (8:33)

There's one thing that I came away from this movie with. It's Clari. I will echo a lot of what y' all have said. I'm a little bit all over the place on this film. There is a sense really from the jump in this film, like, oh, I'm in good hands. I'm in the hands of a very skilled filmmaker. I'm in the hands of a very skilled writer. I'm in the hands of very skilled actors. And all of that is true and is true from start to finish. And there is sort of something interesting going on in almost every scene in this movie at the same time. And I think Glenn said we're gonna refer to in vague terms, we're not gonna spoil the ending. But I will say I found the ending enormously unsatisfying.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (9:17)

Oh my God. Yes.

Glen Weldon (9:18)

I think it's echoed in the performances. I mean, I think they're both great, but I think they're great individually. I don't think these two actors get a chance to breathe together, which is a deliberate choice in his part because if you notice, this film seems to live in tight shots of Stones face and then tight shots of Plemont's face and then tight shots of Stone's face. We go tight on them while they are talking, but he does not show us a lot of them reacting to what the other person's saying. We stay on them while they're talking, talk. Then we cut to someone else as they talk back and forth. And they say acting is reacting. And in the case of Plemons and Stone, he's completely denying us that. And after a while, you start to realize unconsciously that you're wanting to see how Stone would react to that thing that Plemons just said. But we're still on Plemons. Why are we still on Plemons? And if I had to guess, I think it's because he wants to show us this battle of wills of two people asserting their versions of reality. Very different versions of reality. It's kind of what Eddington was doing, I guess, without listening to each other, without reacting to each other. We see them asserting their vision. We see their take. And we never see it making any impression or sinking in with the other person. Contrast that with the Donnie character, the Aiden Delbis character. That guy lives in reaction shots. He's constantly being buffeted back and forth. He's absorbing everything that is said by both these people because he is this chewy emotional center of this film. But he's being constantly acted upon, manipulated by both of them.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (10:35)

And he's been asked not to talk.

Glen Weldon (10:36)

And he's been asked not to talk. So all we get is his face. All we get is his very reactive, emotional face. And I think that's technically a smart choice because it serves the theme. But, man, is it unsatisfying to watch two of the greatest actors of our age delivering what amounts to be a series of kind of mini monologues chopped up instead of having ever a real dialogue, which is the point. But it's frustrating.

Aisha Harris (10:57)

Yeah, there's definitely a claustrophobia to this film that is intentional. And even though we do frequently kind of get these moments away from what's happening in the basement and in the house, it does still in many ways feel like a chamber piece. Like, we're just gonna keep you here. But then, as you said, Glenn, to make that choice, to zone it in even closer, as if you were just actually looking at a computer screen yourself. And, like, you're here. You're reading these, like, reactions of, like, at one point she says, you know, you're mentally ill. And that sets him off and that back and forth. And he's saying, well, you know what? I've been down every single. I think he Calls it the whole digestive tract of, like, alt right, alt left, Marxism. And he's like, and this is where I came to. This is where I come down to. And again, it's that issue of where you're trying to feel like this is documenting what is happening versus where you're making it art. And I think, again, the performances, they are what elevates it. I also have to say that the score by Jerskin, Pendricks, I kind of loved it. It feels like I'm watching a movie from the 1950s. It's very swelling, especially when he's biking.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (12:09)

From home to his workplace.

Aisha Harris (12:11)

Orchestral. It almost sounds like the Herman score from Psycho. It's kind of like that, to me, is kind of what carries it and helps bring it out. But again, it's just like, how much reality do I want in this depiction?

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (12:24)

Yeah, but, you know, my thing is when he talks of that he has read through all of these ideas, and then he constantly says, as we have heard this on many an online forum, I have done my own research, but I'm like, then how are you still so gullible and sometimes foolish? Again, I'm not gonna talk about the exact scene I'm talking about, but, like, if you really hate this person so much and you've, like, done your own research, and you know someone who's here to manipulate you, take over your world, why are you believing her? When it comes to this one big, crucial thing in your life which is driving you insane, like, you are on the brink of insanity, and suddenly you just believe this person after having spent your life doing this quote, unquote, research. That is what really frustrated me. And I'm talking in very vague terms so that I'm not giving away spoilers. Ayesha, you talked about. I'm also increasingly uncomfortable with how misogynist these films are getting. The women in this film endure so much. The woman in this film that's also telling the one woman and the women in his recent films, he just endures so much abuse.

Aisha Harris (13:42)

I mean, at least as far back as Dogtooth. Like, I think that's been kind of. But even Dogtooth is a movie where it's not just the women. It's three siblings. One of them's a.

Glen Weldon (13:53)

But I mean, like, why not both, right? There can be misanthropy and misogyny. Both things can be true.

Siyavash Madani (13:58)

True.

Aisha Harris (13:58)

Exactly. Exactly. Which is why I'm saying, like, I don't think misogyny is necessarily. That's not something I would ascribe to Lanthimos, generally speaking, I think he's interested in. Yeah. I think he's a misinformation.

Glen Weldon (14:11)

Misery, bleakness.

Aisha Harris (14:12)

Misery, bleakness. And these are things I gravitate towards, like, Glenn. Like, these are things that I. But the reason why I love a movie so much, like the Lobster. And maybe it's telling that that's the first Lanthimos movie I ever saw. And that remains my favorite. Lanthimos. Even with all the misery, there's still, as you were saying, Binatri, there's still a little bit of nuance, especially in the way that movie ends and how there's both, like, it's bleak as hell, but it also is kind of heartwarming in a way. And this, you're just like, oh, this.

Stephen Thompson (14:42)

Is not a heartwarming movie. My heart not warms.

Aisha Harris (14:47)

My heart will not go on.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (14:49)

But. So can we talk of Casey, who's, like the sheriff, who's Stavros Halkis, who used to host this extremely provocative podcast?

Aisha Harris (15:00)

Can you say the title on npr? I don't know.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (15:02)

Can I say the title? I will not. Please Google it. But I found it fascinating that he's in a Lanthimos film where, after having made a career out of being very implied. Wow. And you are the face of law enforcement in this film. It was fascinating to me.

Glen Weldon (15:22)

Talks about that on a recent issue of Good One, the podcast where Jesse David Fox interviews comedians. He talks about acting, he talks about the podcast. It's an interesting conversation.

Aisha Harris (15:30)

Yeah. He also has an interview in Slate, and it's interesting because he's both been on a show that kind of says these things in the quote unquote manosphere. But then he's also, like, campaigning with Zoran Mandani. So he's all over the place, but so is this world. It's complicated.

Glen Weldon (15:48)

Yeah. So wrap it up, Steven. Tell us what to think about this movie.

Aisha Harris (15:50)

Yeah. How are we supposed to feel?

Glen Weldon (15:52)

Tell us what we thought about this movie. Please do.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (15:54)

Yes, please tell us what you think.

Glen Weldon (15:55)

I can't wait to hear.

Stephen Thompson (15:57)

Well, opinions are mixed.

Glen Weldon (15:59)

There we go.

Stephen Thompson (16:00)

If Bleak isn't your bag, I'd sit this one out. But I'm glad that we have filmmakers who are clearly given a fair bit of free rein to follow their extremely idiosyncratic vision. I'm glad that Lanthimos is able to be as prolific as he is. I worry that we're starting to get diminishing returns.

Aisha Harris (16:21)

Yeah.

Stephen Thompson (16:22)

But I will say to you what I said to the people outside the theater who were like, what did you think? And I said I have no idea what to tell you.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (16:32)

Yes.

Glen Weldon (16:34)

All right.

Stephen Thompson (16:34)

We want to know what you think about Begonia. Find us on Facebook@facebook.com PCHH and on Letterboxd@letterboxd.com NPRpopculture we'll have a link in our episode description up next. What's making us happy this week?

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Stephen Thompson (18:34)

Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Badatre D. Chaudhary what is making you happy this week?

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (18:42)

What is making me happy this week is the fact that I shared this world with actor Renata Rinesvee, who was a Norwegian actress. Some of us may have seen her in the film called the Worst Person in the World. I just saw Joachim Trier's new film Sentimental Value and she's in the film and I'm sure you guys will talk about this film. But I'm so taken in by this actress and like a she's like beautiful. But I do think she is one of The. The foremost actresses of our time. And she is just so good in this film. And this is a film about. Just to give you a very short idea, the father is an elderly filmmaker, and she plays the elder daughter, and she's a theater actress. And it's such an interesting film because it's not just the meeting of the father and daughter, but also a meeting of artists, a meeting of actors from film and theater. And it all comes down. And she, like, embodies this whole debate, and it's so beautiful, and she brings in so much grace to this very difficult part. I'm just happy to be sharing this world with her. And I'm sure seeking out her other work will make people happy as well.

Stephen Thompson (19:57)

That's Renata Rheinzva from Sentimental Value and.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (20:01)

A bunch of other great films, which you all should be watching.

Stephen Thompson (20:04)

She is great in the Worst Person in the World. I think she should have been nominated for an Oscar for that.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (20:08)

Absolutely.

Stephen Thompson (20:09)

Wonderful. All right, Aisha Harris, what's making you happy this week?

Aisha Harris (20:12)

Kelly Reichardt's new heist movie, the Mastermind.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (20:16)

Very topical.

Glen Weldon (20:17)

Okay.

Aisha Harris (20:17)

Yes. And if you're thinking to yourself, kelly Reichart has made a heist movie.

Stephen Thompson (20:23)

A heist movie. Yeah, that was my first thought.

Glen Weldon (20:25)

Slowest heist ever.

Aisha Harris (20:28)

The woman behind such thrilling barn burners as Meeks Cut off and First Cow and Showing Up. No, the mastermind is you think that, and then you watch and you're like, oh, she made her version of the heist movie, and it's so good. Josh o' Connor is playing an unemployed art school dropout, and he concocts this heist of a museum in Framingham, Massachusetts, in the early 1970s. First of all, this movie is beautifully shot. It's a beautiful period movie, but his character is an amateur. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's not the Louvre heist people. He's. No. Although I will say, like the Louvre heist, it happens in broad daylight, which is interesting, but. But it's about more than that. The heist is a small part of it. And then it's all about sort of his relationships with his family and with people he used to know and friends. And you've also got the backdrop of the Vietnam War. I don't know. There's just something really special about this movie. And I love a slow, deliberate heist. Even though, you know, Ocean's Eleven, all that, those are very fun. But every once in a while, you need your more deliberate, slow moving things. And Kelly Reichardt is great at that kind of filmmaking. Which is why I highly recommend you check out the Mastermind if you are a fan of her work and of Josh o' Connor who is fantastic in this.

Stephen Thompson (21:41)

Nice.

Aisha Harris (21:42)

Thank you.

Stephen Thompson (21:42)

Aisha Harris. Glenn Weldon, what's making you happy this week?

Glen Weldon (21:45)

Okay. Daddy Superior is a short film that's written and directed by Benjamin Partridge. He also composed the music. Benjamin Partridge is the British comedian behind the Beef and Dairy Network podcast on Maximum Fun. This is a black and white film about two monks leading a devout and peaceful existence in the countryside. I'm going to tell you nothing else about it except that one of the monks is played by Mike Wozniak, the British comedian who some listeners, some more discerning listeners, by which I mean the listeners who listen to my recommendations will know as one of the all time great taskmaster competitors. Also, he plays the assistant on Junior Taskmaster. Look it, I'm me. All roads lead back to Taskmaster. Partridge released it on his YouTube channel. Benjamin Partridge, go check it out. It's 15 minutes long. It's very funny. Thank me later. That is the YouTube short Daddy Superior.

Stephen Thompson (22:36)

Nice. Thank you. Glen Weldon, what's making me happy this week? Well, this episode is dropping on Halloween and I am here to recommend the new song by the wonderful Spanish pop singer Rosalia. It is called Berghain.

Glen Weldon (23:09)

I can see ghosts swirling around. That's great.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (23:12)

I can see Jesse Plemons biking to work with this playing in the background.

Stephen Thompson (23:18)

Those like 20 seconds that we played give you just a hint of what is going on just in this like three minute song. Do I need to tell you that Bjork shows up or the similarly wild and inventive Eve Toomer? It is accompanied by a video that is a piece of art. It is a piece of cinema. It is extremely wild and unpredictable and strange. Rosalia is a huge pop star. She is a Spanish pop star who has a worldwide following. She's performed on Saturday Night Live. Her albums, you know, crack the at or near the top of the charts. But I just love it when in an era in which, you know, so much of what we are given access to is dictated by all the dictates of commerce. To have artists who are given free reign to make wild art is so, so exciting. That is Rosalia and her new single Berghain. And that is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter@npr.org popculturenewsletter that brings us to the end of our show. Bhadatri D. Chaudhary, Glenn Weldon, Aisha Harris, thanks so much for being here.

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Thank you.

Aisha Harris (24:37)

Thank you, Stephen.

Bhadatri D. Chaudhary (24:38)

Thank you so much. I still don't know what to make of this film, but thanks, friends.

Stephen Thompson (24:42)

Well, you should cleanse your palette with that Rosalia video. Yes, all the clarity in the world. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Janae Morris and Mike Katsif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello. Come in. Provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next week.

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