Bugonia

The film Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is both provocative and enigmatic. This remake of Jang Joon-hwan's cult film Save the Green Planet! is brimming with the cruelty, absurdity, and satire that characterize the director. The film, written by Will Tracy (known for Succession and The Menu), plunges us into the era of conspiracy theories, fake news, and corporate misanthropy, then filters it all through the dark and comical prism of science fiction. It is both an intimate play and a grotesque carnival, carried almost entirely by the performances of Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, and Aidan Delbis, who clash in a battle of paranoia, power, and control that feels unsettling and timely.

The plot is deceptively simple, but executed with Yorgos Lanthimos' signature sense of ritualized madness. Teddy (played by Jesse Plemons in what is perhaps his most disturbing and nuanced performance to date) is a lonely beekeeper who drowns his grief in the depths of the internet, between ecological collapse, pharmaceutical corruption, and alien conspiracies. Convinced that Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), CEO of Auxolith, is not only responsible for his mother's coma (a brief but poignant role played by Alicia Silverstone), but also an emissary from Andromeda determined to destroy humanity, Teddy devises a plan. With the reluctant help of his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), he kidnaps Michelle, shaves her head to prevent “alien transmissions,” and chains her in his basement, demanding that she call her mother ship to negotiate the survival of Earth. It's the kind of scenario that could descend into farce, but in the hands of Yorgos Lanthimos, it becomes a painful allegory about illusion, complicity, and the frightening malleability of truth.

What makes Bugonia more than just a grotesque satire is the way Jesse Plemons embodies Teddy. Jesse Plemons physically transforms himself into a leaner, more nervous presence, exuding both menace and a strangely disarming sincerity. There are moments when he seems almost tender, talking about bees with childlike wonder or giving Don instructions with paternal attention. Then, without warning, he transforms into terrifying violence, administering electric shocks to Michelle while blasting Green Day's Basket Case at full volume to drown out her screams. It's a performance that oscillates between pathetic fragility and psychotic conviction, forcing the audience to wonder to what extent his madness is rooted in legitimate grievances against corporate exploitation and environmental collapse. Jesse Plemons doesn't just play Teddy as a madman; he makes him a reflection of a society where paranoia and truth have become inseparable.

On the other side of this claustrophobic war is Emma Stone, in her fifth collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, and it's no exaggeration to say that she ventures into unfamiliar and disturbing territory. Her character, Michelle Fuller, projects a fragile and refined image in public, spouting empty mantras about diversity and flexibility while embodying ruthless exploitation, but once captured, she transforms into a chameleon-like survivor. With her head shaved and her body coated in antihistamine cream, Emma Stone delivers a wild and tense performance, alternately mocking Teddy, trying to reason with him, or using her intelligence as a weapon to dismantle his fragile logic. Some of the film's most captivating sequences come from their verbal duels, staged almost like perverse boardroom debates, except for the chains, syringes, and constant threat of violence. If Teddy represents the rage of the disillusioned masses, Michelle embodies the cold indifference of the elite. Together, they symbolize a world caught in a deadly spiral of mistrust and revenge.

If there is a third force in the film, it is Don, the character played by Aidan Delbis, a naive cousin drawn into Teddy's delusions. At first, he is little more than a docile assistant, but over time, Aidan Delbis gives him a touch of tragic innocence and doubt. His presence highlights the film's most disturbing theme: the ease with which vulnerable people can be radicalized, convinced of absurdities simply because they need to belong to something bigger. It is in Don that Yorgos Lanthimos finds a glimmer of pathos, even as the narrative descends into grotesque absurdity.

Technically, Bugonia is undeniably Lanthimosian. Robbie Ryan's cinematography captures the contrast between Michelle's glittering commercial empire and Teddy's aluminum foil-shuttered hovel, bathing both in garish color palettes that oscillate between surreal theatricality and raw realism. James Price's art direction transforms Teddy's dilapidated family home into a stifling scene of paranoia, while Michelle's sterile headquarters shines like a temple of capitalist banality. Jerskin Fendrix's music, full of grandiloquent orchestral crescendos and strident dissonances, alternates between parodying heroism and highlighting horror, keeping the audience in a constant state of unease. Even the title, which refers to the ancient belief that bees could be born from the carcasses of dead cattle, serves as a sinister metaphor for humanity's illusions: the lies we tell ourselves to make sense of a decaying world.

Despite its savagery and dark humor, Bugonia is less about aliens than it is about ourselves. It reflects a society where the boundaries between misinformation and reality have blurred, where the disadvantaged violently attack symbols of power, and where those in power maintain their dominance with the same indifference that breeds resentment. The abduction itself is less a literal confrontation with an alien than a grotesque parody of class struggle, with both sides so consumed by their delusions and arrogance that no resolution is possible. The audience, trapped in the basement alongside Michelle and Teddy, is torn between two feelings: should we side with the deranged beekeeper, whose grievances are not entirely unfounded, or with the cold-hearted executive, who embodies everything he despises?

The film culminates in a finale that is both absurd and strangely sad, its apocalyptic imagery underscored by Marlene Dietrich's haunting rendition of Where Have All the Flowers Gone? By this point, Lanthimos has taken us through cycles of disgust, laughter, discomfort, and dread, ultimately leaving us with a bitter aftertaste: neither conspiracy theorists nor big bosses will save us, and it may already be too late. Like the bees whose disappearance haunts the film, humanity seems doomed to collapse, not because of an alien invasion, but because of its own blindness and arrogance.

Bugonia may not reach the heights of Poor Things or The Favourite in terms of narrative elegance, and some viewers will find its cruelty gratuitous or its social criticism too direct. Yet its strength lies in its refusal to offer comfort. It is a messy, jagged satire that reflects our messy, jagged times, performed with extraordinary intensity by Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, and sharpened by the unflinching gaze of Yorgos Lanthimos. Despite all its grotesqueness, it dares to ask us if we too are caught up in Teddy's feverish dream, trapped in a world where illusion seems more plausible than truth, and where even our attempts at salvation are just one more step toward destruction.

Bugonia
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by Will Tracy
Based on Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan
Produced by Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Ari Aster, Lars Knudsen, Miky Lee, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko
Starring  Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone
Cinematography : Robbie Ryan
Edited by Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Music by Jerskin Fendrix
Production companies : Square Peg, CJ ENM Films & Television, Fruit Tree, Element Pictures
Distributed by Focus Features (United States), Universal Pictures International France (France)
Release dates : August 28, 2025 (Venice), October 24, 2025 (United States), November 26, 2025 (France)
Running time : 118 minutes

Seen on September 6, 2025 at the Casino cinema (Deauville)

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