Bugonia Review

I was a bit apprehensive going into the screener of Bugonia at the 2025 Chicago International Film Festival. You see, I had only seen two of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films before – those would be The Favourite, which I loved, and Poor Things, which I hated – which meant it was a coin flip (in my mind) whether or not Bugonia would live up to the hype surrounding it (from critics at earlier festivals this fall who almost uniformly praised the film). Well, I’m happy to report that I, too, will be heaping praise on this movie – I was absolutely enraptured with the story, the performances, the various twists and turns throughout. It’s a hell of a film, focused, layered, funny, and moving. A truly stellar swing from Lanthimos and writer Will Tracy.

Adapted from Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film, Save the Green Planet!, Bugonia follows Teddy (a spectacular Jesse Plemons), a conspiracy fiend and beekeeper, as he enlists his autistic cousin Don (newcomer Aidan Delbis, who is great in the role) in kidnapping Michelle Fuller (Lanthimos muse Emma Stone, in a very different performance than she is normally asked to give), a local CEO of a major pharmaceutical company. You see, Teddy is convinced that Michelle is actually an alien, tasked with destroying planet Earth.

A rather ludicrous premise, no? Teddy, and through his manipulations, Don, whole-heartedly believe that Michelle is an alien. That her work in Big Pharma is a front for helping to slowly destroy the planet, from humanity down to the innocent honeybees. It’s easy for the audience to laugh at Teddy’s clear delusion, and would be so easy for this story to devolve into some sort of comedy about two kidnappers who are seeing things that aren’t there, with Michelle trying to escape. But that’s not what Bugonia turns out to be. That’s not the story being told here. What’s really happening, how these three characters (along with two others – Alicia Silverstone’s turn as Teddy’s mother and Stavros Halkias’ work as a local cop who knew Teddy when they were younger) connect, and just what is actually going on with Teddy that could have led to him selecting Michelle as the target of his seemingly increasing psychosis unfold over the film’s taut 118 minutes into a truly spectacular series of revelations – some of which you can probably see coming and some of which only become clear once they’re revealed.

Tracy’s script is excellent, pacing the story perfectly so that we never get frustrated with any of our three central characters. We learn just enough about each one – and learn it just at the right moments – so that we can understand their motivations scene to scene as well as start to piece together how each one ended up here. Learning about Teddy’s past in fits and starts allows us to pull each revelation in slowly. We aren’t being spoon fed – the pieces are there, but Tracy also makes sure the reveals aren’t heavy-handed or over the top. Michelle is a blank slate for a good portion of the film – your stereotypical CEO (an early sequence of her dictating just how long her employees should be in the office each day will likely have folks cracking up in recognition to directives we’ve all received from our own companies), very confused about what is happening, defiant and then scared at just what will happen to her once she’s under Teddy’s control. These aren’t complex characters on the face, but rather your basic archetypes. That is, until they aren’t.

I’ve often written that when the three major elements of filmmaking converge just right – that would be the script, the direction, and the acting – magic can happen. With Bugonia, that convergence is nearly perfect. The performances are never showy – each character remains grounded in reality throughout (something that can be an issue in a film like Poor Things, which leaned a bit too far into the absurd for my tastes). Plemons never lets you know just how much of Teddy’s actions are dictated by past traumas (and we learn there are several there) and just how much are from some sort of internal psychosis. Hell, they could be one in the same, but he makes sure we know that Teddy believes that he’s doing the right thing – even when he is confronted with how his trauma is definitely influencing at least some of his choices. And Stone? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her better than she is here. She’s not asked to be likeable or the girl next store. She doesn’t need to lean into her expressive face to make the audience believe that Michelle is the victim here (despite being a high paid CEO of a pharmaceutical company). Instead, Stone opts to show us who Michelle is from the drop. She’s focused on the bottom line. She’s a master negotiator. She will try to do anything and everything she can to get herself out of the situation she finds herself in, including bargaining. She’s ruthless, she’s smart, she’s capable, and she’s unsympathetic. But you know what? You’ll still sympathize with her. I know I did. It’s a great performance and she bounces off of Plemons spectacularly.

If there’s one weakness in the film, it’s in some of Lanthimos’ directorial choices. Not in the actual direction, mind you. Lanthimos uses the camera brilliantly to frame the film (his use of close-ups really helps to get the audience into the minds of the characters). But the sound design is, well, a lot. If you’ve seen his other films, you won’t be shocked, but the use of discordant chords to highlight key moments in the story was the one touch that really took me out of the show. And I was sitting in the theater, totally rapt throughout most of it. And, a word of warning, while there isn’t necessarily body horror within the movie, there’s definitely some sequences that made me super squeamish.

But that quibble with the sound aside, I fully bought into Bugonia and the world Lanthimos, Tracy, and this excellent small cast created. If you’re a fan of Lanthimos or you’re just looking for a different kind of film to watch, Bugonia is going to scratch that itch. Just a recommendation for you: Don’t read up too much of this one before heading into it. It’s best experienced completely blind.

Bugonia will be released in the US on October 24, 2025.