Bigbug
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Bigbug
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Bigbug is a 2022 French sci-fi comedy in which a group of humans are trapped in a home during a robot rebellion in the not-too-distant future. There's some sexual content, including scenes in which characters are briefly shown having sex (no nudity) and heard having loud sex, a scene in which the lead character is in lingerie getting spanked by her new boyfriend, and one where a woman has been having sex with a robot programmed to be romantic to her. A naked male robot is seen on a treadmill (buttocks). Oral sex is implied in one scene. A female robot tells a male human to press one for oral sex, two for masturbation, and to find a specialty robot for penetration. There's some violence, including robots shooting lasers, robots forcing humans to engage in degrading behavior like going for walks like dogs or getting whipped in cages like circus animals, and a prosthetic hand that goes haywire and chokes people to death, including the wearer of the prosthetic hand. Profanity includes "f--k." Teens drink vodka and adults drink cocktails.
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What's the Story?
In BIGBUG, it's April 25, 2045, and Alice (Elsa Zylberstein) is spending time with her new boyfriend, Max (Stephane De Groot), and his teen son, Leo. While Alice talks of her journal and interest in calligraphy, Alice's service robot, Monique (Claude Perron), observes the situation as she cleans and serves snacks, while the voice of Nestor, omnipresent virtual assistant, answers questions and works to ensure maximum comfort for the humans in the house. Everything else is monitored by the robot head Einstein, the "brain" of the house's functioning. Alice and Max's time together is ruined when Alice's ex-husband, Victor (Youssef Hajdi), shows up with his girlfriend, his spoiled administrative assistant Jennifer, and his and Alice's teen daughter, Nina. Victor informs Alice that she needs to watch Nina earlier than the usual times of custody because he and Jennifer are going to a luxury resort. Shortly after, Alice's neighbor Francoise stops in for a visit. As all of this is happening, the news reports that the roads are clogged with the worst traffic seen in quite some time. The self-driving cars are at a standstill, and the robots, after monitoring the situation, keep all the humans inside the house to prevent them from getting hurt. As Victor does everything possible to leave, Alice and Max try to continue their budding romance. Leo marvels at Nina's collection of ancient computers, including a relatively primitive robot named Tom, and Francoise tries to get her dog that's trapped outside to help. Meanwhile, Monique, Einstein, and Tom discover that a new and higher-tech breed of robots called Yonyx are trying to take control of the planet from the interior humans, and that they must show their solidarity by trying to become human themselves. As the robots try to learn the arts of seduction and joke-telling, the humans, with increasing desperation, try to find a way to outsmart the robots in the home to open the doors and let them outside. When an escape effort almost succeeds, this attracts the attention and ire of one of the Yonyx, a lumbering bureaucratic bully, and now the humans and house robots must find a way to fight back and regain their freedom.
Is It Any Good?
This is a quirky dystopian movie that sci-fi fans are likely to enjoy. Bigbug is a French sci-fi comedy from the director of beloved movies like Delicatessen and Amelie, and the propensity for Rube Goldberg devices and absurdity play to the strengths of a story about technology run amok. It's often very funny, and the colors and design of the house where almost all of the action takes place, with all its pastel colors and garish aesthetic, contrast with a world where humans seem increasingly decadent and dependent on technology to do things they used to do just fine on their own. The action takes place in the year 2045, but this world has obvious parallels to our own, with assorted sexcapades between the characters to keep the movie a more French and slightly less bleak version of a Black Mirror episode.
There are moments in the middle when the balance between the central story of uber-bots trying to overthrow humankind, house-bots trying to learn to be human, and humans trying to maintain or kindle sexual relations goes as haywire as the robots involved in this technological revolt. However, the third act and its arrival of the Robocop-esque Yonyx, a bureaucratic bully and violent tormentor of these humans, sets it right, and the final battle is as engaging as any conventional sci-fi fight to the death. It offers at least the smallest of hopes that humanity isn't a lost cause, even among the most selfish and bourgeois among us.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about sci-fi comedies like Bigbug. How did the movie use absurdist comedy and dystopian sci-fi to make comments on contemporary society's increasing reliance on technology and AI?
Do you think technology can become a problem for people, if it isn't already? How does this movie address the ways in which people interact with technology these days, and how this relationship might evolve in the future?
Did the sexual content seem necessary to the story, or did it seem excessive? Why?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: February 11, 2022
- Cast: Elsa Zylberstein, Claude Perron, Youssef Hajdi
- Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Topics: Robots
- Run time: 111 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: February 28, 2022
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