| Worth seeing: | for the head-to-head war-of-words between a big business boss and a small-time conspiracy theorist - although there is little consistency to the unfurling of the increasingly bonkers narrative |
| Director: | Yorgos Lanthimos |
| Featuring: | Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias |
| Length: | 118 minutes |
| Certificate: | 15 |
| Country: | Canada, Ireland, South Korea, UK, US |
| Released: | 31st October 2025 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Teddy Gantz (Jesse Plemons) works in the warehouse at a major biosciences firm, Auxolith, and keeps bees in his spare time.
His boss Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) looks young for her age, because of her daily training regime, but despite her huge success in business, she doesn’t have that human touch.
Teddy holds Michelle and her company responsible for a treatment that put his mother in a coma.
But he also has another issue with her; he’s convinced that she’s an alien, whose threatening the existence of all life on the planet.
Teddy persuades his learning-challenged cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) to help him abduct her – his plan is to persuade Michelle to take him to her Andromedan mother-craft so that he can negotiate with her leader to leave Earth and save human civilisation.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
The premise certainly seems bonkers enough to have come from the mind of Yorgos Lanthimos, but it is – in fact – a reimagining of a 2003 South Korean film, Save the Green Planet!
The contrast between the pristine lines of Michelle’s home, office and wardrobe with Teddy’s grotty and grimy farmhouse and overalls provide a clear visual representation of the huge gap between the squeaky-clean image presented by big business and the underground lair of the conspiracy theorist apiarist.
The contrast between his certainty and her denial is at the heart of their battle of words – but despite her spending most of the time chained to the floor of his basement, the true victim of the piece always feels like the unsuspecting Don, who follows his cousin out of love and duty, but never really understands the gravity of what he’s being asked to do. If we’re meant to be on Teddy’s side, as he battles big business, seeks justice for his mother and tries to save the world, the way he treats his vulnerable cousin makes it increasingly difficult.
There are many familiar elements to the story, not least the Misery-style incarceration – there’s even a leg injury – but you can rest assured that this film is by Yorgos Lanthimos, so any sense of familiarity will not last.
For much of the time, Bugonia seems surprisingly mainstream for a Yorgos Lanthimos film, but David Lynch-style, he throws in a twist which changes everything – but as is the case with Lynch, given that we know it’s a Lanthimos film, there’s only one way this is going to go – and it goes that way.
The unfolding of the story feels a little convenient, rather than being driven by consistent revelations and as it builds towards its denouement, a succession of increasingly bizarre moments spin it wildly into an entirely different narrative, about which I can’t elaborate, in case anyone is reading this who has never seen Yorgos Lanthimos at his most outlandish.
Bugonia poses some interesting questions, but it isn’t really interested in any answers, as the key aim seems to be to shock and surprise, rather than to change our understanding of the competing war of words between big business and conspiracy theorists – one of the big fissures currently running through all Western societies.
You can always count on Yorgos Lanthimos to give you an unconventional big screen experience, but sometimes you need more than that.