Arizona Republic If you don’t find looking at the news every day pessimistic enough, might I suggest “Bugonia?” Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, and his latest collaboration with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, holds a rather dismal view of humanity, its treatment of the planet, its predilection for conflict and violence, its willingness in the face of concrete evidence to keep making things worse, not better. It’s really funny. Which sums up Lanthimos’ films in a nutshell, really. They should be impossible to watch, yet they are ridiculously compelling and filled with coal-black humor. His confidence as a filmmaker and a storyteller makes him something of a cinematic alchemist. You should be uncomfortable, and you will be. But you’re definitely not going to stop watching. What is 'Bugonia' about? The same is true with “Bugonia,” which is sort of like a sci-fi B-movie with hall-of-fame acting. It is in fact a remake of director Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 film “Save the Green Planet!” I’ve never seen that film, so you’re on your own for comparisons. I am comfortable saying that, with the able help of his accomplices Stone and Plemons, Lanthismos makes the film his own. Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more! Teddy (Plemons) is a conspiracy theorist of the first order. He and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) live in a remote house where they keep bees and otherwise keep to themselves. Teddy works in a low-level job for Auxolith, a company that makes pesticides and drugs. Don is autistic (as is Delbis), and while he’s willing to go along with Teddy’s cockamamie theories, he’s also willing to question them. He might have tried harder to question Teddy’s insistence on chemical castration. Teddy’s plan is to kidnap Michelle (Stone), the hard-driving CEO of Auxolith. In one hilarious bit, she tells an assistant to send an email to employees telling them that they may now leave work at 5:30 p.m. Of course, they don’t have to. And they should stay later if they haven’t finished their work. Definitely stay later in that case. Teddy is convinced that she is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy. He believes she and others like her are responsible for destroying the environment, for the decline of the planet and its residents, for basically making everything miserable. He hopes to force Michelle to broker a meeting with the Andromedan emperor to negotiate their exit from Earth. Over time we learn why Teddy feels this way. It is to Plemons’ credit that he instills a character who could have been a one-note nut case with emotional complexity. He goes from pseudo-intellectual justifications to unbridled fury in an instant. “I don’t get the news from the news,” he explains, to the surprise of no one. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are great in Yorgos Lanthimos’ film Teddy and Don successfully, sort of, carry out their abduction plan (all those martial arts classes pay off for Michelle, at least for a while), and immediately shave Michelle’s head. Her hair can signal other aliens as a kind of homing device, Teddy explains. He is proud of the pioneering work he has done in identifying Andromedan aliens, which eventually extends to an excruciating session with electrical current. They slather her in cream, for reasons I don’t even remember. Whatever the case, it gives, along with her bald head, Michelle an otherworldly glow, which is doubtless the point. Michelle, of course, denies that she is anything other than human. No doubt a veteran of innumerable difficult negotiations, she calmly explains to Teddy and Don the situation as she sees it — basically that they will end up in jail once the authorities find her. But you don’t fall as deeply down the conspiracy rabbit hole as Teddy has to let something so pedestrian as reason sway you. He holds steady. Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/movies/billgoodykoontz/2025/10/29/bugonia-review/86924211007/