Bugonia Is Yorgos Lanthimos at His Best
In Bugonia, Emma Stone plays a kidnapped pharmaceutical CEO trying to convince her deranged abductors that she’s not a sinister alien in disguise. As a portrait of our political impasse, it’s a shocking, wild ride with an ending you won’t see coming.
Bugonia concerns a pair of rural men who abduct Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, because they’re convinced she’s an alien come to destroy Planet Earth through corporate means. (Focus Features)
The new Yorgos Lanthimos film Bugonia is a wild, delirious ride, with an ending that’s driving certain critics to ranting fury. But it’s starting strong with the public, giving Lanthimos his best opening weekend ever.
Which is only just, since this is the best Lanthimos film since The Favourite back in 2018.
Bugonia concerns a pair of rural men, Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin, Don (newcomer Aidan Delbis), who abduct Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Auxolith, because they’re convinced she’s an alien come to destroy Planet Earth through corporate means. The cousins plan to force her to arrange a meeting with the “Andromedan” rulers on the mother ship, so they can negotiate a deal with the aliens to leave Earth in peace.
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