Bugonia depicts a kind of paranoia that should spark debates around systematic oppression, but ultimately favors style over substance.
Beyond Fest 2025 came to a close with Bugonia, an addition to producer Yorgos Lanthimos’s very polarizing filmography. It seems like you either love or hate the guy’s work; few people land in between. Despite the divisiveness of his movies, he has managed to enter the awards race. This is primarily thanks to his collaborations with actor and producer Emma Stone in both The Favourite and Poor Things. The connective tissue across his films appears to be our need to have some level of control over our lives.
The Favourite sees two women compete for their Queen’s favor in 18th-century England. Meanwhile, Poor Things is an outlandish odyssey of a woman gaining control over her body and mind. And now, Bugonia explores how a system built on exploiting people can lead to paranoiac meltdowns, bringing about the worst possible human instincts within us.
Synopsis
Based on Save the Green Planet! by South Korean filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan, Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone, Zombieland, The Curse, Kinds of Kindness, Eddington) is the chief executive officer (CEO) of a major company, who wants to be perceived as part of the working class while enjoying the luxury that comes with her position. One day after work, Teddy (Jesse Plemons, Breaking Bad Season 5, Fargo Season 2, Civil War) and Don (Aidan Delbis), two conspiracy-obsessed young men, break into Michelle’s home and kidnap her. Their motive? They believe that she is an alien seeking to destroy planet Earth.
Nothing Above the Surface
For years, audiences and critics alike have wondered why a talent of Jesse Plemons’ status has not yet received an Academy Award. He can shift between bringing a level of sincerity to his characters and sinister intentions quite effortlessly. Audiences feel safe with his portrayal of Tom White in Killers of the Flower Moon. By contrast, there is an unease with the hilariously creepy neighbor he plays in Gary from Game Night. Plemons uses the best of both worlds with Teddy.
Teddy is an incredibly broken man. Broken by the corporation exploiting him, broken by his mother’s deteriorating health, and broken by the abuse the film keeps insinuating he experienced as a child at the hands of his babysitter, Casey (Stavros Halkias, Sweethearts). The pieces for the audience to sympathize with him are all laid on the table. Yet, he’s grown to be such a despicable adult—one who has no issue with dragging his cousin Don, someone on the spectrum, into his belief system and making him help Teddy commit kidnapping and torture.
On the surface, Teddy can be read as your typical right-wing conspiracy theorist who believes everyone is out to get him. He’s a deeply paranoid individual who seeks to blame everyone but himself for how his life has turned out. Bugonia uses the unsubtle comparison of overworked bees trying to appease their queen to drive Teddy’s motives. On paper, this would make for a deeply troubling protagonist. Surely, Plemons does his best to add complexity to the character, though Lanthimos’s execution of the themes around Teddy falls flat. Bugonia wants to both vindicate and disapprove of Teddy’s actions. It wants us to find empathy for his predicament while laughing at his ridiculous ideas, and a balance between these opposites is never reached.
Michelle Fuller
Michelle’s characterization isn’t handled the best, either. Here, we have yet another character with plenty of contradictions. She will argue that she is for the people. All she wants is for her employees to feel comfortable in their roles at the company. This loving support takes her as far as to suggest that they are free to go home whenever they wish, but not without reminding them in a passive-aggressive manner that they still have a job to do; she’s the queen of the beehive. She directs herself in a cruel, performative nature that you can’t help but see why a paranoid person, such as Teddy, could view her as inhuman.
Like Teddy, the pieces for a morally gray character in Michelle are there. However, Bugonia is more interested in shock value and quick laughs than in furthering its characters and ideas beyond what’s on the surface. Plemons and Stone’s back-and-forth is engaging thanks to the performers, not necessarily Will Tracy’s (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Menu, Succession, The Regime) script. Michelle is constantly put through extreme violence, but none of it seems to challenge her worldview. It doesn’t help that the supporting characters are thinner than Michelle and Teddy. Don is reduced to being the one person to feel bad for, and Casey’s predatory past distracts from the actual compelling drama rather than adding any nuance.
Bringing Paranoia to Life
The one undeniably impressive element from Bugonia is its aesthetic. Director of photography Robbie Ryan (The Favourite, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, Tornado), Lanthimos’s go-to DP, captures color and textures with such richness, making what should be flat environments—an old house, a messy basement, or a corporate complex—feel lively. Production designer James Price (Paddington 2, Poor Things, The Iron Claw) sets the disconnect between social classes so effortlessly. At first glance, Teddy’s home is rather warm, like it were run with love at one point. Once you start paying attention to its surroundings, it reveals cracks in its walls, as if it isn’t what it used to be. This reflects Teddy’s tragic life, oddly beautifully.
In contrast, Michelle’s office and home are glossy and neat. Almost unnaturally neat. Their massive glass doors and windows allow for anyone to peek through. This suggests there is nothing to hide, only to reveal a hollowness to the heart of these buildings. Price and Lanthimos know exactly how to externalize character through the visual power of the medium in which they operate. The farther and weirder the movie gets, the gorgeous sets and costume designer Jennifer Johnson’s outfits go along to convey the film’s concepts and tonal shifts.
Final Thoughts on Bugonia
In retrospect, it’s fitting that Bugonia closed 2025’s Beyond Fest when the film that opened the festival was No Other Choice. These are two similar thematic works of storytelling about capitalism leading people, good and bad, to lose their minds. No Other Choice has its drawbacks, but they don’t prevent it from diving deep into its themes and providing a fully realized arc for its protagonist. The way I see Bugonia is as a thriller that thinks it’s smarter than it actually is. Its narrative could and should make for engaging commentary on corporate America, conspiracy theorists, and paranoia. Unfortunately, it trades developing these ideas for twists and turns that are there to get quick reactions from the audience without earning their place in the film.
Yorgos Lanthimos and Will Tracy’s Bugonia comes to theaters on Friday, October 24th!
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