Bugonia – REVIEW

People who don’t believe in conspiracies are often seen as easy targets, especially when it comes to theories about things like the shape of the Earth, the Kennedy assassination, and 9/11. We experienced this firsthand while making a documentary about 9/11 – when our interviewer presented facts to a conspiracy theorist, he accused us of being involved and walked away. In the new film, we meet Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a beekeeper who develops his own conspiracy theory when his honeybees start disappearing. He believes a powerful pharmaceutical company, run by Michelle (Emma Stone), is to blame. But it’s not just the bees – Teddy also blames the company for the failing health of his mother, Sandy (Alicia Silverstone), who became ill after participating in one of their disastrous drug trials.

Teddy, after doing some online research, convinces his impressionable cousin Donny to help him kidnap Michelle. They believe she’s an alien and want her to take them to her home planet and its ruler. Michelle finds their ideas ridiculous and responds with anger, then attempts to reason with them, and finally begs them to let her go. Meanwhile, the friendly but not very bright local sheriff, who is also a friend of Teddy’s, is investigating the disappearance of a company’s CEO.

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone team up again in their latest film, and Stone delivers a fantastic performance, perfectly matched by Jesse Plemons in some intense and surprisingly violent scenes. The movie is loosely based on the film ‘Save the Green Planet!’ and blends dark humor with a thought-provoking question of who the real monster is. While visually less extreme than Lanthimos’s previous work, it still features striking imagery, like flashbacks of Teddy’s mother in black and white, and a particularly memorable and unsettling final act. Fans of Lanthimos and Stone’s previous collaborations won’t want to miss this. The title ‘Bugonia’ refers to an old myth about bees being born from the body of a dead ox.

Here’s the Bugonia trailer……

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2025-11-01 18:24