Film Review: BUGONIA (2025): Emma Stone is Perfect in a Dark, Fascinating and Disturbing Yorgos Lanthimos Drama

Bugonia Review

Bugonia (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, written by Will Tracy and Jang Joon-hwan and starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, J. Carmen Galindez Barrera, Marc T. Lewis, Vanessa Eng, Cedric Dumornay, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias, Momma Cherri, Fredricka Whitfield and Roger Carvalho.

Two-time Oscar-winner Emma Stone excels in her leading role in the deeply disturbing new movie, Bugonia, from director Yorgos Lanthimos. This new picture is just as wild and frustrating as you’d expect from the visionary Lanthimos (Dogtooth) who has teamed up with Stone several times now. Stone makes her character in this picture, Michelle, a true original and commands the audience’s attention right from the “get-go.”

Michelle is a high-level CEO of a major company who is “mistaken” for an alien looking to destroy all human life on planet Earth. There are two bumbling misfits, Teddy and Don (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis), who wander around Family Dollar stores while trying to figure out which humans who walk among us are normal and which ones are not. Bugonia definitely keeps the attention of the audience with its violent plot progression, but the unique ending is, without a doubt, going to be something of a showstopper for anyone expecting a typical resolution to this highly unusual premise.

Stone’s character is a real piece of work, so to say. She tells her employees they’re welcome to leave early under new work protocols, but Michelle also encourages her workers to stay if they still have things that they need to do. Basically, Michelle isn’t doing anyone any favors. She graces the covers of magazines like Forbes and Time and is a high-powered individual who one wouldn’t want to mess with. She may have met her match in the two fools, Teddy and Don, who look dumber than they actually turn out to be. Teddy has Don shave Michelle’s head after they get her in a vehicle and kidnap her. With Michelle’s head shaved, she will have a more difficult time contacting her alien colleagues or so their theory goes.

Michelle is virtually tortured by the two guys in question with Teddy being the seemingly more menacing one. This film involves a sequence or two regarding bees, but Lanthimos doesn’t want the viewer to examine things too closely. At least it seems like he doesn’t. That’s because when the filmmaker pulls out all the stops with a great conclusion, it seems as if it sort of pulls the rug out from everything we’ve witnessed beforehand. This is a conclusion that ranks up there with The Crying Game and The Sixth Sense in terms of both originality and cleverness.

Plemons is solid in a performance that ranks among the actor’s best work to date. When he hides a shotgun in his pants as he walks Michelle up to her office late in the film, Plemons captures his character’s sincerity as well as his foolishness and stubbornness. If Michelle really was an alien, both Teddy and Don wouldn’t stand a chance in hell against her. She’s too swift and Stone’s character always seems a couple of steps ahead of our (possibly) moronic duo.

Don suffers more than Teddy does with confidence and with street smarts. That makes Don a likely victim more than an attacker of Stone’s character although Michelle does endure a series of vicious obstacles which she must use her wits to overcome and she has to try to survive at any costs. It’s hard to discuss the plot of Bugonia without revealing spoilers. This whole movie is full of spoilers as to what happens after Michelle is kidnapped. Some of the elements have a familiar vibe to them such as the fact that Michelle will escape her trappings, but only for so long. When help shows up, it’s evident that Teddy and Don will keep it away from Michelle at all costs. It’s a no-win situation for the smart Michelle except that the CEO Stone plays is actually holding a wild card which the movie saves for the very last minutes of the picture.

Emma Stone is sensational, but we’ve come to expect great work from her time and time again thanks to the potency of her previous work. Jesse Plemons may be the VIP here as Teddy asks Michelle to contact her alien people while he dons a bomb on himself that could go off if he’s not careful enough. Plemons is the quintessential weirdo here and the actor chews scenery left and right with some of the most powerful scenes he’s ever done taking center stage in the film. Teddy is not playing with Michelle and his violent behavior towards her makes this fact known rather quickly.

Stone’s Michelle quietly holds a swift stick even though she seems like she’s outnumbered by our two kidnappers. Stone won her last Oscar for her work on Lanthimos’s Poor Things. Bugonia never really reaches the heights that the other picture did, though, even though the new film reaches for the stars in terms of its scope and depth. We know Lanthimos is not one to shy away from the themes he chooses to explore in his work and this film is no exception. He employs Alicia Silverstone for a small role in the movie that has some significance and relevance to the way the movie plays out. This is hardly Silverstone’s movie although the actress does the best with what she’s given.

Jesse Plemons’ role is meaty and he always plays out the part here as the character is written. Teddy is a smarter man than audiences will give him credit for, but he’s still a bumbling character who reaches for more than he can possibly grasp. Aidan Delbis, as Don, feels like he’s truly got this own part of his down pat. Don is more sympathetic than Teddy although the movie doesn’t really want us to side with these characters, especially when the movie reveals its last-minute hand with wildly shocking results all around.

If Emma Stone hadn’t won the Oscar twice before, she would have been a likely Best Actress Oscar contender. However, Lanthimos gives her a break this time out as she keeps her clothes on much more than in Poor Things and, ultimately, Stone’s Michelle rules the roost here, overcoming her dorky kidnappers in a wild way. Through a series of twists and turns, Michelle does get the upper hand and audiences will want to see how things develop as the plot gets more and more obscure and more and more enjoyable as well!

Bugonia is a relentless tale of control and how those people who try to steer their own ship don’t necessarily have what it takes to keep it on track despite their lofty ambitions. Stone is near-perfect in this role she plays here, but people will be a bit more surprised by the range Plemons brings to the table as well. This is a movie to see, just if it’s to find out Lanthimos’s pair of wild cards which come into play right during the scrumptious climax of this quality film.

Rating: 8/10

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