Fantastic Fest 2025: ‘Bugonia’ is a Perfectly Weird Satire
We continue our Fantastic Fest 2025 coverage with the latest movie from Yorgos Lanthimos. The filmmaker behind provocative and quirky stories, such as Poor Things and The Favourite, brings a wildly bizarre, dialogue-heavy film called Bugonia. The film made a surprise appearance as one of the secret screenings at the festival. For many attendees, it was a delightful surprise.
Bugonia continues the inventively bizarre creative style of Lanthimos, taking baffling premises and turning them into prestigious works. For this story, it’s a kidnapping comedy that feels like the Coen Brothers having a blind date with Terry Gilliam. The movie also sees Lanthimos discover new ways to stretch Emma Stone‘s acting prowess while possibly paving the way for Jesse Plemons to secure an Oscar nomination.
What is Bugonia about?
Written by Will Tracy and adapted from a Korean film titled Save the Green Planet, the movie Bugonia revolves around two beekeeping brothers, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), who set out to kidnap a world-famous pharmaceutical CEO named Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone).
From the beginning, the film centers on the oddball relationship between the brothers Teddy and Don. Plemons portrays Teddy with the inspiration of a basement-dwelling conspiracist. He believes aliens are trying to invade Earth, but he also has a disdain for Michelle Fuller. His brother Don, who struggles with autism, finds himself impressionable under the influence of Teddy, as his brother pushes him to join him in chemically castrating themselves. Because, as Teddy says, they have a mission that cannot be interfered with by any possible temptations.
The two brothers then take it upon themselves to kidnap Michelle in broad daylight. And while they are successful, the whole attempt hardly goes as planned. Once they have her back at their house, Teddy begins to lay out the reasons for her imprisonment in his basement. He believes strongly that she’s an alien and tells her to moisturize her skin with lotion for unclear reasons.
The film then becomes a battle of wits between Michelle and Teddy, as she implores him to let her go because of the manhunt that will ensue. And Teddy makes it clear to her that it will never happen because he knows the real her. The movie then keeps the viewer wondering why Teddy has decided to kidnap Michelle, making us constantly question whether Teddy is crazy or if there is something more at play.
An extremely twisty dark comedy from Focus Features
From here, the screenplay keeps everybody on their toes, where the viewer is constantly uncertain about who’s the good guy and who is the villain. In one respect, Teddy comes across as unhinged, unkempt, and possibly dangerous. His rantings about Michelle being an alien have the Alex Jones delivery, and one could see Teddy as one of the frequent clients of the Jones’ vitamin collection. The type of person who might take supplements from a grifter conspiracy persona while labeling every politician a lizard person in disguise.
On the other hand, Michelle is an expert communicator, to the point that one can see she has years of experience manipulating people like Teddy and Don. She clearly has the motive to escape her situation, but there is an elitist quality to her language. And it’s never overly sinister, but when she is speaking to the brothers, she never comes across as sincere either.
As the situation unravels, Will Tracy‘s screenplay manages to make the dark and intense elements somehow funny. Thematically, Bugonia is very similar to Tracy‘s previous work, The Menu, which explores the way the rich and powerful are pushing us to the point of losing our minds. Whether Michelle is an alien or not, the toll she has on the public clearly is having an effect for the worse.
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons give top-notch performances
Emma Stone puts in another bonkers performance. There are sequences where there is nothing but dialogue between her and Plemons, and Stone‘s dialogue delivery has a rhythm that makes the viewer hang on every word. In one sequence, it almost feels like Plemons is not even acting by his reaction to Stone‘s cadence. She truly embodies a CEO who requires a skill set for conversational warfare.
Plemons might be a lock for his performance as Teddy. At this point, the conversation around Plemons and his impressive body of work is long overdue for recognition. Here, he gives one of the strangest performances of his career, which, for him, says a lot. Teddy is mildly unpleasant, lacks any form of personal hygiene, and might be just as manipulative as Michelle, due to the way the world has pushed him to that point. At times, Plemons portrays Teddy as unlikable and manic, and making a sympathetic character unlikable is a tough line to walk.
As the situation unravels, the stakes become increasingly higher, and the events become funnier and wildly baffling. It’s difficult to explain without giving anything away, but most of the second half of the film takes incredibly wild swings. But audacious storytelling is the norm for the director of The Lobster.
For myself, Bugonia hit every weird note to perfection. It’s an extremely twisty experience with outstanding performances from Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone. Yorgos Lanthimos made a rare, mind-bending comedy that never fails to surprise until the very end.
Also check out Fantastic Fest 2025: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Explores the Stresses of Motherhood
