Bugonia (2025) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Yorgos Lanthimos takes an absurd concept and weaves it into gold in this new picture about a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a female CEO.

It’s really hard to describe Yorgos Lanthimos. He’s done so many genres with his own unique style it can be hard to describe what he is about. He’s tackled divine judgment in The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), womanhood in Poor Things (2023), and ruinous relationships in The Favourite (2018). With the main characters being on the complete opposite side of the cultural zeitgeist, Bugonia is his most topical film yet. It might also be one of the most inventive.

Right from the get-go, you can get a sense of what the main themes of the film will be. We start with an intense close-up of bees in a colony, going about their day while Jesse Plemons’ Teddy farms with his autistic cousin Don. His monologue starts with an admiration for them, before going off into a mesmerizing rant about how “they” are controlling everyday people. To do this, as he explains while exercising with Don, they have to be the ones in control. Which is why they’re going to kidnap Michelle Fuller, the high-powered CEO of Autholix, who they believe to be an alien.

Thus it begins.

I am always a fan of films that take an absurd premise and perform miracles, but I also love films where the dialogue keeps your feet firmly planted on the ground. Bugonia accomplishes both. Between Teddy’s paranoia and Michelle’s steel grace, there are two people in the same room who believe they are doing good for humanity. For Teddy, exposing Michelle’s alien nature will liberate humanity from extraterrestrial influences. For Michelle, she simply wants to help humanity be the best it can be by pushing for new breakthroughs in science. However, both are stuck at an impasse–their own humanity.

One of the best things this film does is humanize Teddy. From the beginning, you might think Teddy is an incel, a redneck, mentally ill, or any other of the kinds of men you see nowadays who are inundated by echo chambers and who need to touch grass. However, screenwriter Will Tracy makes it clear that while he commits heinous actions, he is also a victim. The film gives us flashbacks to his relationship with his mom, and how his fallout with Autholix turned him into the red-pilled man he is today.

In addition, Michelle is given a very ambiguous nature. Emma Stone plays her perfectly; she and Yorgos Lanthimos are some of the best director-actor pairings today. She plays Michelle with the paradoxical steeliness and sweetness you expect of today’s female CEOs, and the way she behaves when she is kidnapped make you start to weirdly believe Teddy’s theories. While Teddy undoubtedly has problems, you can’t deny there’s something strangely off about her. Nevertheless, Michelle does have her moments of humanness, like when she lip-synchs to “Good Luck Babe!” by Chappell Roan in her car. It might feel out of place, but on a second viewing, it makes all the more sense.

I was a bit worried about how active Yorgos Lanthimos has been in the past few years. He’s been active for much of the last decade, and he also put out three films in the past two years. But I didn’t get a sense he was burning out with this picture. In fact, all of his strengths come through in this film, from the absurdist tone to the black comedy to the strange moments of comedy that find their way into the most bizarre of moments. For a film that’s quite topical, you don’t get a sense you’re being preached to, which is also quite refreshing. In fact, I would say Yorgos Lanthimos’ directing style is perfectly attuned to our moment–everything is strange, nothing makes sense, and yet people are still human. We’re gonna do crazy shit, and sometimes things don’t work out. And maybe that’s for the best. After all, humans are consistent.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• I wish I had Michelle’s morning routine, but there is no way I would ever wake up at 4:30am.
• Ari Aster was an executive producer on this film, and boy does it show.
• Aidan Delbis is phenomenal in this. He will break your heart.