Bugonia, 2025.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.
SYNOPSIS:
Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos’s eleventh feature film, arrives on 4K Ultra HD with a code for a digital copy and just one bonus feature. This was my first experience with one of his movies, and I’m now determined to catch up on what I’ve missed since 2001. If you enjoy movies that defy expectations in their final minutes, then I’d say this one is worth a blind buy, if you haven’t seen it yet.
Bugonia was my first experience with a Yorgos Lanthimos film, and I have to say that it has inspired me to seek out his other works. It has a bit of a Coen brothers vibe to it, but it’s also a unique story that has its own voice and view of the world. More of this, please. (And, yes, I’m aware this is a remake of a Korean film, Save the Green Planet!.)
Emma Stone stars as Michelle Fuller, CEO of the drug company Auxolith, who’s kidnapped by conspiracy theory-addled Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), who begrudingly goes along with the plan. Teddy believes that Michelle is a member of an alien race known as Andromedans, who have assumed the guise of humans and are killing honeybees and otherwise wreaking havoc designed to make us subservient to them.
Teddy and Don shackle Michelle to a bed in their basement, where they shave her head and cover her body in an antihistamine cream that Teddy believes will prevent her from calling for help from her alien buddies. A lunar eclipse that’s due to happen in four days will supposedly give the Andromedans cover to enter Earth’s atmosphere, and Teddy insists that Michelle must negotiate a meeting with her emperor so that he can save the planet from certain doom.
How is she supposed to contact her people if Teddy has made it impossible for her to do so? Well, that’s the kind of question that conspiracy theorists don’t take kindly to, and Michelle must do her best to play a psychological game with him in the hope that she can make an escape at some point.
Her status as the CEO of a well-known company means that her disappearance is all over the news, and local law enforcement begins looking around the area near Teddy and Don’s house, based on pings from Michelle’s cell phone before she disappeared and it was destroyed. In particular, a sheriff deputy named Casey, who inflicted some kind of childhood trauma on Teddy when Casey was his babysitter, comes around asking questions.
This psychological thriller takes a wild turn at the end, which I of course won’t spoil. I’m sure, though, that it will polarize many viewers, but I’m definitely in the “I loved it” camp. It felt like such a perfect way to end the movie without relying on typical tropes.
Universal has issued Bugonia on 4K Ultra HD with an accompanying Blu-ray platter and a code for a digital copy. Given its recent vintage, the film looks great, of course, and I imagine it’s comparable to what viewers recently experienced in theaters, although I’m not in that group.
The lone bonus feature found on the disc is The Birth and the Bees: The Making of Bugonia, which runs 23 minutes and features comments from Stone, Plemons (I’m such a fan of him), and others, along with production footage. It’s a shame it isn’t longer, and I’m bummed by the lack of a commentary track, but I admit I don’t know if Lanthimos is one of those directors who are loathe to talk too much about their work. Or maybe Criterion or another boutique label will reissue this one in a jam-packed special edition.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
