Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.
If you woke up drugged and chained to a cot in a stranger’s basement, most people would start screaming and plead to be freed. But not Auxolith CEO Michelle Fuller, played by two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone in her fourth collaboration with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos. When Fuller wakes up and comes to realize the nightmarish situation she’s in, she calmly appeals to her captor’s sense of rationality. Unfortunately for her, he doesn’t have any.
Plemons plays Teddy Gatz, a beekeeper and warehouse worker, who has fallen into a conspiracy theory wormhole and recruited his neurodivergent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) into kidnapping a woman they believe to be a member of an extraterrestrial race called “Andromedans.” They plan to use her as a bargaining chip with the aliens to free humanity from their control.
The way Bugonia pulls you in is nothing short of hypnotic. It offers a brutal depiction of humanity’s ugliest side. Stone’s shaved head gives her a more reptilian vibe, stoking tension around the question, “Is she really an alien?”
We don’t get any scenes of Michelle screaming, crying, or pleading for her life. She appeals to Teddy and Don with calmness and rationality. Even under extreme duress, she knows how to manipulate people.
Jesse Plemons gives the performance of a lifetime. The way Teddy speaks eloquently with his captive, convinced his delusions are true, always just one wrong word away from a violent outburst, makes him terrifying. Personal tragedy informs his actions, along with a life spent doom-scrolling and wallowing in paranoia. Michelle praises Teddy’s apiarist hobby, saying she admires bees for their work ethic and lack of self-obsession. The two share similarly cynical views of politics and humanity at large; they just happen to exist in different social strata.
Stone pulls off the impossible, delivering a performance in which every reaction and monologue means multiple things. Is she an alien, or isn’t she? Bugonia doesn’t leave any ambiguity. All questions are answered with a suitably bleak yet entertaining payoff that feels earned.
Bugonia is another stellar entry in the partnership between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone thanks to two unreal performances by its leads. This psychological thriller satire will stay with you long after the credits roll.
In Theaters Friday, October 31st
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