Lockdown anxieties meet techno-pocalypse anxieties in the latest surrealist fantasy from auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In the Jetsons-esque households of the 2050s, humanity is waited upon, hand and foot, by artificial intelligence of all shapes and sizes. In a quiet suburb, a family and their hangers-on (mom’s new boyfriend, her ex-husband’s fiancée, their hip teenage daughter, a nosy neighbour and a sullen teenage boy) are suddenly locked in and held captive by the appliances.
Outside, tensions ratchet (and clank) as the latest generation of androids exert their dominance. The Yonyx (a scene-stealing François Levantal) are attempting a hostile takeover, enslaving humanity and destroying their outmoded counterparts. Trapped in their home, the humans become increasingly hysterical and unpredictable. Meanwhile, the robots observe and adapt. There’s android maid Monique (Claude Perron) and smart-aleck bust Einstein (André Dussollier, a cross between Alexa and Art Attack’s The Head). With the Yonyx uprising spelling doom for both humanity and other, older technologies, it’s in the appliances’ best interests to keep their humans shielded… whether they like it or not.
Jeunet is a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them. This is especially true of the comedy in Big Bug – broad, farcical, and raunchy. Both humans and robots goof for the camera, giving big, cheesy performances. None can hold a candle to Levantal, though, as the supremely unsettling Yonyx 7389XAB2. It runs a bit long, at almost 2 hours, but the time flies whenever Levental’s grinning Robocop is around.
The uniformly strong performances are almost enough to detract from the clunky jokes and more on-the-nose observations (humanity is becoming increasingly dependent upon technology, who knew?). As with a lot of Jeunet’s work, it’s so fanciful as to put the teeth on edge (the eyes too, if live-action Jetsons isn’t your thing), but his world is well-realised and bleakly plausible. Exhausting, yet full of wit and invention.
Big Bug is out now on Netflix
