Emma Stone’s Bugonia: Secretly Set In The Same World As Kinds of Kindness?

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Please be aware that this article contains spoilers for the film Bugonia. Emma Stone’s newest movie, Bugonia, marks her third consecutive collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos in just three years. While their previous films, The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023), were historical dramas, Kinds of Kindness (2024) represents a departure for Stone and Lanthimos.

Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film, Bugonia, starring Emma Stone, is a follow-up to his recent movie, Kinds of Kindness. Both take place in modern times and are darkly comedic, but Bugonia is noticeably funnier and ultimately more upbeat. Kinds of Kindness is a more intense and draining film to watch.

The new film stands out because it’s a story where good things happen to the main character – something you can’t say about Kinds of Kindness. But these two films might be more connected than just having the same director and actors. It’s possible Bugonia actually takes place in the same universe as Kinds of Kindness.

Emma Stone Plays A Confirmed Andromedan In Bugonia

The film Bugonia centers around Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), who believe a CEO named Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy sent to destroy Earth. They kidnap her, hold her captive, shave her head, and Teddy subjects her to brutal torture, including electrocution, in an attempt to uncover her supposed secrets.

The film’s visual style draws you to Michelle’s side, even as she maintains she’s not an alien. She cleverly uses her captors’ beliefs against them to escape. Though she doesn’t directly cause them, two people die as a result of her actions, and she ultimately kills Teddy before the movie’s shocking twist. Importantly, the way Teddy tries to figure out who Michelle really is actually pushes the audience away from him.

As Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, and Jesse Plemons have pointed out, the ending of Poor Things directly confirms what Teddy suspects. It’s revealed that Michelle is actually an Andromedan who has been living among humans, and she’s deeply disturbed and traumatized by Teddy’s actions. Ultimately, she decides humanity doesn’t deserve to continue, and chooses to end all human life.

Emma Stone’s Character In Kinds of Kindness Chapter 2 Could Be An Alien

Kinds of Kindness is a film made up of three related stories, linked by shared ideas. Each story looks at how flawed people are and questions whether our values are truly genuine. The film uses science fiction elements to examine how people behave when facing difficulties, ultimately offering a rather pessimistic view of human nature.

As a big movie fan, I found it really interesting how Yorgos Lanthimos had all the main actors playing different roles throughout Kinds of Kindness. Emma Stone is a perfect example – she starts with a smaller part in the first section, but then she really shines as a key supporting character in the second, and then becomes the lead in the third! It’s almost like the second segment, “R.M.F. Is Flying,” is directly tied to his earlier film, Bugonia – it’s a clever connection that adds another layer to the whole experience.

I recently watched R.M.F. Is Flying, and it really stuck with me. Emma Stone plays Liz, a marine biologist who vanishes on a research trip, only to return home seemingly… changed. Her husband, Daniel, played by Jesse Plemons, is immediately unsettled, and things quickly take a very disturbing turn. He starts acting strangely, demanding increasingly awful things from Liz – basically forcing her to humiliate and harm herself just to satisfy him. It’s a really unsettling and difficult film to watch, honestly.

When Liz dies after selflessly giving part of her liver to Daniel, he’s shocked to find another Liz at the door. This raises the unsettling possibility that the Liz who died was a duplicate, or that the new Liz is, or that they both were created as clones. The story hints that Liz may have been kidnapped and replaced with a copy by extraterrestrial beings.

Bugonia Feels Like An Unofficial Chapter 4 Of Kinds of Kindness

I’ve noticed that both Bugonia and Kinds of Kindness are visually stunning, with really striking colors. What’s also interesting is that they both feel very contemporary and really dig into the darker sides of people – things like cynicism and violence. Honestly, watching Bugonia felt like seeing where Kinds of Kindness could have gone next, like it was exploring another part of what’s wrong with humanity. And they both have this really strange, twisted sense of humor that I found really compelling.

Michelle also claims to be from the Andromeda galaxy and explains that Andromedans look similar to humans because they feel responsible for the dinosaurs’ extinction. As a result, they populated Earth with a species resembling themselves. Therefore, if Liz from R.M.F Is Flying is an alien clone, she could have been taken by the same Andromedans from Bugonia.

Bugonia’s Climax Gives Emma Stone A Happy Ending After Kinds of Kindness

The biggest weakness of Kinds of Kindness is that it doesn’t offer any emotional payoff. Throughout the film, Emma Stone’s characters repeatedly experience emotional and physical hardship without finding a way to overcome it or get revenge. While she’s often portrayed as someone who suffers throughout the movie, Bugonia initially continues this pattern, but then changes things up in the last half hour.

The third act of Bugonia reveals Michelle Fuller, played by Emma Stone, finally getting revenge on Teddy for the abuse she suffered. This punishment extends to all of humanity, holding them accountable for allowing such violence to exist. Because of this, Bugonia feels like a more appropriate conclusion to the Kinds of Kindness anthology.

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2025-11-08 17:39