Bollywood

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia is a film that exists somewhere between satire, science fiction, and psychological thriller and true to the Greek auteur’s temperament, it refuses to pick a lane. The director, known for his surreal dissections of human behaviour in The Favourite and Poor Things, reimagines the 2003 South Korean cult classic Save the Green Planet! for a modern audience. The result is a film that is both audacious and uneven, equal parts allegory and absurdity.

The story follows two disillusioned men, Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), his neurodivergent cousin, convinced that a powerful pharmaceutical CEO, Michelle Fuller, played by Emma Stone, is, in fact, an alien orchestrating humanity’s demise. Acting on their paranoid conviction, they abduct her and hold her captive in a basement, hoping to extract a confession that could “save the planet.” What follows is a strange, often disturbing tug of war between delusion and truth, power and helplessness, rendered with Lanthimos’ signature blend of deadpan humour and unnerving precision.

The director has worked once again with long-time collaborator, cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who has used wide-angle lenses, one-point perspectives and exaggerated depth of field to create a world that feels both clinical and grotesque. The film is shot in VistaVision, giving its carefully composed frames a heightened sense of visual distortion. Every space seems too bright, every face too close, every pause too long. It’s a movie built on discomfort, using form as a mirror to its fractured themes.

At the heart of this disorienting narrative are two magnetic performances. Emma Stone, continuing her fruitful collaboration with Lanthimos, turns the cool composure of a corporate titan into something eerie and unreadable. Her role demands restraint and ambiguity and she excels on all fronts. Another Oscar nomination seems to be on her way. Whether she’s a manipulative CEO or an extraterrestrial predator is never entirely clear and that’s exactly the point.

Opposite her, Jesse Plemons delivers a career-best performance as the unhinged beekeeper-turned-conspiracy theorist. He embodies his character’s paranoia with terrifying sincerity, balancing absurd humour with deep tragedy. Plemons steals the show, grounding the film’s surreal energy in something painfully recognisable, the modern paranoia that fuels online misinformation and distrust. Aidan Delbis is himself autistic and hence his act rings with lived-in truth.

Thematically, Bugonia dives into various terrains: environmental collapse, corporate greed, and the seductive logic of conspiracy theories. It’s a film about power structures and the fragile human need to find meaning in chaos. In that sense, it feels eerily reflective of our own moment, where truth has become a matter of belief and belief a weapon of survival. Lanthimos doesn’t spoon-feed his audience answers but crafts a cinematic space where absurdity feels like the only rational response to the world.

Yet for all its ambition, Bugonia is not without flaws. The middle act, dominated by the hostage scenario, begins to drag under the weight of its own repetition. The tonal shifts from farce to horror to philosophical reflection can feel jarring, even indulgent. The film raises questions about faith, power and truth, but leaves them suspended, unresolved, perhaps intentionally so.

Ultimately, Bugonia is a film that dares you to either engage or walk away. It’s not meant for those seeking tidy endings, straight narratives or moral clarity. But for viewers willing to surrender to Lanthimos’ warped worldview, it offers a biting, funny, and often haunting reflection of contemporary anxieties. Like the best of his work, it finds beauty in the bizarre and discomfort in the familiar.

In the end, Bugonia may not convert anyone who isn’t already in Lanthimos’ corner. But for those attuned to his peculiar rhythm, it stands as another fascinating, if imperfect, entry in a filmography obsessed with human delusion and the strange, buzzing noise it makes when confronted with the truth. Just like the much-loved bees, so central to the film. The end will shock you for sure. But the absurdity of the human condition, even in its collapse, will bring a smile as well. Are we really needed in this world to keep? Wouldn’t it fare better without us? Such questions will haunt you for sure, much after the end credits roll away.

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