A One Mann’s Movies review of “Bugonia” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 5*, ’15’).
I’d forgotten that I republish these LFF reviews when the films come out. And “Bugonia” is out in cinemas this week. I went to see it again and loved it for a second time. There were a few additional notes I made from this viewing, so I have slightly updated my review.
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Yorgos Lanthimos knows how to deliver a movie. I didn’t particularly care for “The Lobster” (now I am more in to his style, I really should give it a rewatch); “The Favourite” and of course the Oscar-lauded “Poor Things” have all massively impressed me. His last film – “Kinds of Kindness” – got a more mixed reception (I quite liked it, but others here at the LFF were less kind). Striking, vibrant, shocking, sometimes outrageous, it’s impossible to not see one of his films without FEELING something. Now with “Bugonia”, he delivers perhaps his most readily accessible work and hits it out of the park. A genuinely entertaining film aimed squarely at the US Social Network conspiracy nuts who will believe anything.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Apiarist Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his mentally challenged cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) are convinced through ‘comprehensive research’ that Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is using her position as CEO of a major corporation, Auxolith, to hide her real evil intent as a part of an Andromedian plot to control civilisation. A part of this involves the extermination of the bee population through neonicotinoids, something very close to Teddy’s heart. In order to extract a confession from her, the hapless pair plan to kidnap her.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong violence, injury detail, suicide, very strong language”).
Talent:
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone .
Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos.
Written by: Will Tracy. (Based on the South Korean original screenplay by Jang Joon-hwan.).
Running Time: 2h 0m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Both Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone are brilliant.
- A twisty plot that could go in a number of different directions.
- A controversial, killer ending… I loved it but I know others have hated it!
- Another striking music score from Jerskin Fendrix.
- Brilliant cinematography by Robbie Ryan.
Negatives:
- I have nothing. This was one of the highlights of the LFF for me.
Full Review of “Bugonia”:
A beautifully restrained Lanthimos.
I said that this was probably the most accessible Yorgos Lanthimos film and by that I mean it is probably the one that most audiences will find it possible to sit through! All of his films have tended to have either a few seriously ‘ick’ bits (that eye in “Poor Things” or the prostitute scenes, for example) or else a diversion into over-stylisation and/or magical-realism that loses more mainstream viewers.
“Bugonia” is much more restrained. It tells a linear story from A-to-Z, albeit with some fantastical twists. It limits the amount of magical-realism to a ‘comatose mother kite-flying scene’ (but hasn’t everyone flown their comatose mother as a kite?). And in terms of gore, it has a short section with a lot of blood and a dodgy patella that some might want to look away from.
Plemons and Stone are magnificent.
2026 looks like being a challenging year for predicting the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars. There have been many great performances and it wouldn’t be a surprise to me if both Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are nominated. But will they win?
It’s a great comic performance from Stone as the cold and imperious CEO Michelle. We see her recording a trite diversity training video, with little conviction, and marching through her headquarters building urging people to leave at 5:30 for their work/life balance (provided of course they’ve done all their work by then!) Her acting in the later captivity scenes is superb: the look she gives Teddy after a vicious slap could curdle milk. I think it’s unlikely she will win, partly because she won two years ago for “Poor Things” and partly because she is up against Jessie Buckley for “Hamnet“.
But it’s perhaps Jesse Plemons that will be the more likely Oscar winner. His sweating, twitchy, paranoid Teddy is marvellous. He also seems to have lost a ton of weight, looking gaunt and emaciated, and the Academy loves a transformation. The way he delivers his lines is mesmerising, especially when he is getting exasperated. His performance was also helped by having some great lines to deliver: he describes pollination as like sex, but “less messy and nobody gets hurt”.
The twisty plot.
Did the plot go where I thought it would go? Yes it did. But it was done in such style and comic grace that I really didn’t mind. It really is a delightful piece of comic writing, based on a 2003 South Korean comedy/horror film called “Save the Green Planet!” (which from the trailer also looks great!) Teddy and Donny’s delusions are whacky and deranged, shaving off all of Michelle’s hair and slathering her body in white lotion to prevent her from communicating with her “mother ship”. “Everything’s for a reason” Teddy keeps saying as if trying to stoke his own convictions.
Poor Don! Played really nicely by Aidan Delbis, Don is a paradigm for all of the deranged half-wit moon-landing, flat-earth and Tylenol/autism freaks brainwashed into ludicrous beliefs on the internet. He even lets Teddy convince him to be chemically castrated (as Teddy says he has already been), even though Don bemoans that “I really wanted to ‘do it’ one day”. The process does at least allow Teddy to say to Michelle later “we have no interest in you sexually” (a concept not all of my film-reviewing colleagues can relate to!)
In a limited cast, we also have the fateful intervention of local cop Officer Casey (Stavros Halkias) that you know is not going to end well. There is a very funny angle, similar to the ‘camping trip’ in “Gavin and Stacey”, where something bad but unstated happened between Casey and Teddy during a babysitting session 20 years ago!
The film’s finale seems to be the divisive part of the film. I’ve heard comments from some at the LFF that it ruined the film for them and from others that it was simply brilliant. I’m with the latter group. A montage of still(-ish) images is both funny, moving and quite brilliant.
The Music and the Cinematography.
Once again, Jerskin Fendrix delivers a strange, atonal and totally fitting soundtrack to the action. A descending four-note motif is weird and unsettling.
Lanthimos’s favourite DP, Robbie Ryan, is also back and on great form. He got Oscar nominations for both “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” and I can see him having another opportunity with this one. The fish-eye lens is back (for example, when Michelle is strutting through the corporate HQ) but it is a bit more dialled back and subtle compared with “Poor Things“.
Summary Thoughts:
Once again, there is some disagreement about this one among the collective press I’ve talked to at the LFF. But I have to rate this one 5*s based on how much fun I had with it. It is very likely to make my (very crowded) Top 20 of the year.
By the way, the term “Bugonia” refers to an ancient ritual based on the belief that bees spontaneously generated from a dead cow’s carcass, and the term comes from the Greek words for “ox” and “birth”.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd_5HcTujfc.
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