“Bugonia is yet again proof that Lanthimos’ storytelling power isn’t waning.”

“One day you will see.”

Don’t trust film critics. Don’t trust their reviews. They are all part of some corporate conspiracy anyway, so do your own research. Don’t be sheeple.

We are living in dangerous and confusing times. Times in which algorithms drive us further apart and make it harder to discern the truth. Rabbit holes are easy to fall in, and the internet is littered with them. Conservatives wage a war on science, and Andromeda55 on YouTube is seen as an equally trustworthy source as authoritative academic voices in the same field. In such a world it is easy to see how one can get into a situation like the one in Bugonia, the latest film by Greek master-of-weird Yorgos Lanthimos. A more down to earth film than most of his outings, at least until the true violence starts, this more-or-less straight remake of 2003’s Korean obscurity Save the Green Planet sees Lanthimos back on form after his not-too-well received anthology film Kinds of Kindness, and should see co-leads Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons land in end-of-the-year awards talk.

Teddy (Jesse Plemons) has not been dealt the best hand in life. His mother was left in a coma after the experimental drug program she was part of failed, and as a child he was sexually abused by his babysitter Casey (stand-up comedian Stavros Halkias in his first serious role), now a cop with remorse who tries to check in on Teddy after the situation with his mother. His emotional state makes Teddy very susceptible to algorithm-fuelled paranoia and getting caught in conspiracy bubbles on the internet. He’s the kind of guy that would say, “I don’t get my news from the news.“

He has convinced himself that there are aliens among us, and that Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the high-powered, fast-talking CEO of the pharmaceutical company that was responsible for the drug program that turned his mother into a vegetable, is one of them. This Christian Louboutin wearing, de-aging pills popping, infrared mask wearing power woman is in a transitional period at her company Auxolith, where diversity programs and work-life balance are the new buzzwords. As long as the work gets done of course, because the bottom line is still what counts. But Teddy is sure that this successful but ruthless woman is going to be the end of human life at an upcoming lunar eclipse. So he enlists his live-in cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), a sensitive and neurodivergent young man who follows his cousin’s lead in everything (Delbis himself is part of The Miracle Project, a fully inclusive arts program focused on building communication, self-esteem, and life skills for neurodivergent and disabled individuals), in a wild plan to kidnap the alien to thwart its plan to extinguish human life.

The two men follow a strict DIY training regimen to be ready to counter the strength of this extra-terrestrial being (Lanthimos hilariously juxtaposes their clumsy attempts at getting fit with Stone’s professionally led training sessions and martial arts classes). At the moment of truth they almost botch the kidnapping, but eventually they manage to get Michelle tied up in their basement. When Teddy declares to a bewildered Michelle that he has figured out that she’s an alien (“Look at her small feet and her slight overbite,” he explains to Don), and that they have shaved her bald because her hair allowed her to communicate with the alien mothership, it is the start of a tug-of-war between the mentally disturbed Teddy (Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ as the backing track of a torture scene is on point) and the shrewd negotiator Michelle to get the upper hand, with poor, sweet Don standing on the sidelines wanting to please his cousin but protect the bald woman in the basement. When he is left to keep an eye on Michelle while Teddy tries to get rid of a concerned Casey investigating the case of the missing woman, all goes to hell and the film takes a violent (and violently funny) turn.

Bees play a key role in this film, not just because Teddy keeps bees at home when he is not working in Michelle’s company’s shipping department, or because the title Bugonia comes from an ancient Mediterranean myth in which bees generate from dead bovine carcasses. But also because Teddy’s bee colonies are metaphorically either a match for the extra-terrestrial civilization he believes Michelle to be the Queen Bee of (something he asserts after the aforementioned hair-raising torture scene), or for the corporate entity she owns where all her bees slave tirelessly, cosmetic improvements in work-life balance be damned. Bugonia certainly has criticisms of corporatism under its hood, although its main raison d’être is its satirical look at our age of conspiracy theorists and their ‘critical thinking’. Will Tracy’s biting screenplay approaches Teddy in a nuanced way, his mother’s demise and his helpfulness towards his colleagues on the conveyor belt giving the character the soft edge of a man who wants to help humanity, but who somewhere in his internet ‘research’ took a wrong turn and fell into a dark conspiracy hole.

Plemons, considerably slimmed, tackles the role with the kind of dangerous streak he’s had in some of his previous work, starting with his breakthrough in hit show Breaking Bad. His Teddy is sweet but manipulative, a walking powder keg ready to blow at any moment. At one point early in the abduction when he is not satisfied with a voice message, he goes into a rage that is truly terrifying to watch. Opposite his unpredictable explosiveness stands the calculated, hard-nosed Michelle who tries every trick in the book to manipulate the two men into setting her free. Physically restrained Stone goes from venomous contempt to pleading and sweet-talking in a heartbeat, and later, after one character’s extremely gory exit from the film, her trademark physical acting takes over. It’s not as demanding as her role in Poor Things, but Stone’s go-for-broke attitude towards Lanthimos’ demented scenarios once again provides for hilarious entertainment. And her blaring along with her car stereo playing Chappell Roan is worth the price of admission alone (one wonders what her bestie Taylor Swift thinks of that song choice).

Bugonia is yet again proof that Lanthimos’ storytelling power isn’t waning, even if his tales are not everybody’s cup of tea; the film also shows no weakening in his relationship with his muse Stone, as this is yet another strong and out-there part that solidifies Stone’s standing as the most accomplished comedienne in the business today. Add Plemons to that stable (can there be male muses too?), who adds yet another character to his cabinet of creeps. Underlining the disturbing proceedings are frequent collaborators Jerskin Fendrix’s score and Johnnie Burn’s sound design, which both turn the screws when things get hairy, and from the first moments make clear that this is not going to be a weird-but-funny film like Poor Things was, but that we are in for something far more sinister. Bugonia definitely takes things to the bloody extreme before throwing in a twist that is hilarious and gives costume designer Jennifer Johnson a moment to shine; and Lanthimos and Tracy have definitely kept the zany, over-the-top violence of the Korean original, but morphed it into a disturbing satire of our times far better than Ari Aster, who ironically insisted Tracy should watch Save the Green Planet, managed to achieve with his own Eddington.