Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com! The world is on fire, but I think we could all use something to distract from the chaos and remind us there are still good things that exist, right?
Today I'm talking about one of this year's current nominees, the latest film by Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, based on a 2003 South Korean film called Save the Green Planet! True to Lanthimos form, this movie is BONKERS. Demented, disturbing, and remarkable.
Plemons plays Teddy Gatz, a conspiracy nut who's convinced the Earth is being slowly destroyed by aliens from the Andromeda galaxy. After extensive online "research" he's determined that Michelle Fuller (Stone, in yet another commanding turn), the CEO of the company he works for, is one of these aliens. Teddy has spent years indoctrinating his childlike, autistic cousin Don (newcomer Aiden Delbis in a prodigiously effective performance) to assist him in the capture of this suspected alien, so they may accompany her on her starship and ask the Andromedan Emperor to leave the Earth alone. After much bungling, they manage to abduct her and bring her to their basement to begin interrogation.
I don't really want to go into more plot detail than this, because like all of Lanthimos's work it's better to go in as cold as possible. But Bugonia is a powderkeg of a thriller that includes sociopolitical commentary on conspiracy cultism, corporate PR gaslighting, misogynistic violence, Big Pharma, climate change, poverty, etc. But it's so small-scope and personal it could almost work as a stage play as well. There are only five principle characters, the three mentioned above, plus Teddy's mother (played by another Lanthimos collaborator Alicia Silverstone) and a local policeman (Stavros Halkias, appropriately awkward). The film doles out information about the characters sparsely and we eventually learn how they're all connected, but the central conflict is the power struggle between captors and captive. Michelle is no damsel in distress; most of the time she seems more in charge than her kidnappers, and cracks begin to form in Teddy's hold over Don.
Jesse Plemons gives a career performance here - unkempt, uncertain and most of all unhinged. Like so many insecure manosphere bros, he projects the air of a guy who knows the real score and wants desperately to be in control, but he falls to pieces at the smallest pushback, particularly when it's a woman doing the pushing back. When things don't go according to plan he becomes positively hysterical and it's fascinating to watch Michelle become more and more assertive despite being physically at Teddy's mercy. You can almost smell how unwashed this character is.
Composer Jerskin Fendrix in his third collaboration with Lanthimos infuses ominous thriller tones with a darkly comic bent, fitting perfectly the signature tone the director is so known for. This score would fit right at home in an Ari Aster film, and I was not surprised to learn Aster was in fact a co-producer on this one.
It's difficult to convey how extraordinary Bugonia is without going deep into plot details, but suffice it to say, if you like your thrillers to be a perfect mix of uncomfortable, taut, bloody, and darkly funny, Bugonia will absolutely scratch that itch. This is one of the best films of 2025.
I give the film **** out of ****.
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