Bugonia

Don't get me wrong, Emma Stone is terrific here, carrying that same cool, unreadable spark that Tilda Swinton built a career on, only with a younger, brighter edge. Stone has already collected two Oscars, though, and what really catches you off guard is Jesse Plemons, who turns in a performance so sharp and so unsettling that you keep thinking you've never quite seen him push himself like this.

"Bugonia" eases in with what looks like a simple setup, just two men talking, one dominating the dialogue while the other tries to keep pace, and before you realize it the whole thing has shifted into a story that moves fast yet stays grounded enough to feel like something that could unfold a few blocks from where you live. I was hooked from the first scene and stayed that way nearly all the way through, though the ending lingers longer than it needs to, just enough to place it a step below "Poor Things." Even so, it is unmistakably a Yorgos Lanthimos production, and it carries that same strange, irresistible flavor that makes his work so easy to sink into.

Bugonia is a dark (VERY dark in some places) comedy / sci-fi story involving a conspiracy theorist who thinks Andromedins have invaded the Earth.

Performances are hit and miss. I'm sure some of this has to do with the writing, but Aidan Delbis didn't pull off the "challenged partner-in-crime." He was doing something with his lip that reminded me of Bill Murray in Caddyshack. Given that the movie is so dark, I think they could have written this character as someone with a legitimate mental illness, and have it portrayed that way, preferably by someone else. The comedic angle of this character fell flat. This same character type was played straight in the movie Good Time to a much greater effect.

I also think Teddy was far too stupid to have pulled any of this off. Jesse Plemons did a serviceable job playing Jesse, but the character was written to be too unintelligent.

Overall, this was a decent movie. The ending was a little opaque, but it's easy enough to follow the general idea without Googling.

8/10.

Watching *Bugonia* felt strange in the best possible way. Lanthimos throws you into a world where nothing feels entirely normal - the rules are odd, people react in unpredictable ways, and yet something about all this chaos feels oddly familiar. You laugh, but there's always tension underneath it, like you're waiting for something to go wrong. The emotions hit harder than expected, even in moments that seem absurd on paper.

The story follows two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap Michele (played by Emma Stone), a corporate figure they believe is an alien trying to destroy Earth. It sounds ridiculous - and it is - but Lanthimos uses that absurdity to dig into paranoia, power, and the strange ways people cling to belief when faced with uncertainty.

Visually, the film looks beautiful and a bit unsettling. Shooting on 35mm gives it texture - the kind of imperfections, shadows, and lighting you don't get with digital. It makes the world feel alive, slightly out of sync, and that's exactly what this story needs. The camera work feels intentional without being flashy, every frame adding to the unease.

The tone is darkly funny but emotionally sharp. Lanthimos doesn't offer easy answers or explanations. He just builds tension through behavior - through silence, through glances, through moments that should be funny but end up being uncomfortable. Emma Stone stands out; she plays Michele with a mix of calm control and quiet menace that holds the film together.

It's one of those films that doesn't fully explain itself, and maybe that's the point. You either go along with its strange rhythm or you don't. For me, it worked - not because everything made sense, but because it felt honest in its chaos. Lanthimos doesn't tell you what to think, he just lets the madness unfold, and somehow, that's what makes it stick.

**Verdict:** 9/10 - not as tight as *The Favourite*, but easily Lanthimos's boldest and most unpredictable work since *The Lobster*.

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London Film Festival review

For a moment BUGONIA is like watching "Misery" or "Funny Games" through the lens of 1950s Hollywood dystopian paranoia films. Yorgos follows the sadistic path he started in The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Kinds Of Kindness playing with Kubrick-like visuals and sounds to deliver a fairly straightforward cynical fable until it's not.

Emma and Jesse explore a violent theatricality and beautiful expressionism to great success. Both are harrowing and spectacular (this is Plemons best part ever) but are also limited by the linearity of it all. The last act reconnects Lanthimos with his subversive, unpredictable and absurd poetry but I guess Media, Politics and Truths are this year's true topics. Not surprising this film shares common grounds with Eddington.

I wanted to love it but I just really really liked it.

Plemons sinks into this role like wet cement.

If Heath Ledger's Joker was chaos on fire, Plemons is the silence that burns before the explosion. The yin to that yang. No makeup, no theatrics, just a man quietly losing his grip one inch at a time. You can't look away.

His scenes of him 'brainwashing' his cousin exudes a natural darkness I cannot recall ever seeing on screen before.