Any film with the name Yorgos Lanthimos attached to it means you’re in for one strange and outrageous head trip. Depending upon your sentiments regarding the filmmaker’s, ahem, unique canon (“The Lobster,” “The Favourite,” “Poor Things,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” and so on) could mean you’ll be either super hyped or devoutly disinterested when a new film of his comes out.
“Bugonia” is a different beast, and I’d be willing to wager that even the filmmaker’s staunchest detractors might find a kernel or two to savor in his latest insane and insanely brilliant concoction — one of the wildest cinematic rides of 2025.
That said, “Bugonia” does stick to the Lanthimos surreal playbook, hurling out shocks, reveling in abundant weirdness and dousing everything in dark humor. So it’s a surprise that it’s written by someone else — hotshot Will Tracy (“Succession,” “The Menu”). His seamless screenplay springboards off the 2003 Korean film “Save the Planet!”
But Lanthimos doesn’t always write his film’s screenplays. In fact, some of his best works — “Poor Things” and “The Favourite” — were penned by others. With “Bugonia,” the loopy twists and turns and unexpected trap-door gotchas bind together and orbit a parable that tap-taps-taps an irritated, angry zeitgeist nerve in the same vein as the creatively inspired and culturally relevant “One Battle After Another.”
The plot presents a focused scenario. Don’t be fooled by that. An unstable “worker bee,” so to speak, named Teddy (Jesse Plemons, getting a chance to flex his acting might) and his sidekick cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) put their crackpot alien conspiracy theories into motion by kidnapping pharmaceutical bioengineering company CEO Michelle (Oscar-winner and frequent Lanthimos collaborator Emma Stone, giving another awards-caliber performance). The two buffoons shave her head, chain her in the basement of a messy remote home and then accuse her of being an alien. The shrewd, mostly composed Michelle subjects both of these loner men to an earful of strategized corporate speak as she tries to finagle her way out of this mess. Michelle is a heartless professional and sees this as a battle between the wits (herself) and the dimwits (her captors). And as the days inch closer to a lunar eclipse, Teddy grows more antsy.
That’s about all you should know about “Bugonia,” which morphs into something far more extraordinary than its mostly confined-space thriller trappings. The performances are across-the-board exceptional — including Stavros Halkias as a cop who was a babysitter of Teddy’s. The fine-tuned production values, the mesmerizing cinematography (it was filmed in extra-defined VistaVison), the wardrobe (Plemons’ grungy clothes and Stone’s pricey couture reveal so much about their characters) and the mood-appropriate score from Jerskin Fendrix (“Poor Things”) heighten and accentuate Tracy’s screenplay.
All these excellent, exacting details coexist well with each other to produce one of Lanthimos’s best films yet, a movie of startling ingenuity that also doubles as a humorous but pointed warning to us all. Details: 4 stars out of 4; opens Friday in select theaters; expands Oct. 31.
‘BUGONIA’
4 stars out of 4
Rating: R (bloody, violent scenes including a suicide, language)
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkiasmos
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes
When & where: Opens in select theaters Oct. 24, opens wider Oct. 31