Original caricature by Jeff York of Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in BUGONIA (copyright 2025).
It’s time to add Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s names to the greatest director/actor pairings in the history of cinema. They join the likes of Scorsese & De Niro, Pollack & Redford, Tarantino & Jackson as consistent examples of their greatest work being done in tandem. Lanthimos and Stone made THE FAVOURITE, POOR THINGS, and KINDS OF KINDNESS, bringing out the best in each other, and they’ve done it again with their new film BUGONIA. It’s not only a sharp and timely dark comedy that sets its satirical sites on corporate America, internet conspiracies, and the healthcare crisis in the nation, but it is so bold and brazen, it’s breathtaking. And it confirms that Lanthimos and Stone are utterly brilliant together.
The term “bugonia” essentially means new life arising from death, going back to the ancient Greek and Roman practice and belief that bees could spontaneously be generated from a carcass of a dead animal. Bees play a key role in this film, as does the idea of something substantive coming out of death be it a rebirth of a person’s purpose or even an attitude makeover stemming from dramatic events. Those dramatic events here start with a conspiracy-obsessed beekeeper named Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons), who along with his slow-witted cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) decide to take vengeance on a corporate CEO named Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) whom they believe is actually an alien destroying planet Earth. The fact that Michelle oversees a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company gives their quest all the more steam, especially given that Teddy blames her for the condition of his comatose mother due to opioid addiction.
So, what do these two do? They kidnap Michelle and hold her hostage even though neither man has thought through much of a plan beyond her abduction. And that goes awry quickly too when she puts up quite the fight as they try to wrest her into a van in her company’s parking lot one morning. Lanthimos and the clever script by Will Tracy, adapted from the book Save the Green Planet written by Jang Joon-hwan, presented Michelle earlier as one formidable foe. She’s the kind of corporate barracuda that wakes at 4:30, works out, eats a power breakfast, and then practices martial arts with a professional trainer – – all before she arrives to the office at 8 AM.
This is a three-hander that plays out as one nasty, rollicking power struggle. Even though Teddy and Don will rough Michelle up, shave her head so her tresses cannot communicate with the mothership (!), and threaten her with electrocution, the titan of business will fight them with all the C-suite acumen she can muster. What’s challenging about it lies in where your sympathies lie, often changing from moment to moment, let alone in individual scenes as they spool out. A lot of it is hysterical, some of it is tragic, and all of it is thought-provoking as despite the satire, the role of business in the caretaking of Americans is the undercurrent here, certainly timely as all get out considering what is at the core of our government shutdown at present.
Most of the film though is a stitch, especially watching Michelle struggle to conceal her contempt for these two doofuses who are even dressed in suits to show that they’re serious revolutionaries. Adding to the hilarity is the tacts she takes to confuse and confront them. She weaves plenty of corporate doublespeak into her head games with them, imploring them to “have a dialogue” with her as she leans into “best corporate practices.” Such expressions aren’t satire; they’re literally the way every corporation is talking these days as they try to connect with their employees and consumers.
Making it all the funnier is the discipline of the actors. They play it all straight, never pushing the comedy harder than necessary. Plemons has the lion’s share of words in the film, and he makes his Reddit-ish ringleader both pitiable and understandable even when he’s at his most maddening. As he did in CIVIL WAR last year as well, Plemons can be terrifying too and the story gives him opportunities to scare the bejesus out of Michelle, let alone those of us in the audience. Delbis says little but his body language speaks volumes as he’s clearly in over his head from the start. I like the way he uses his helmet of black curls to hide, as if he can escape his actions if his beady eyes are concealed by such a mop. Stavros Halkias plays an unsuspecting local police officer who stops by for an excruciatingly tense scene in the middle of the narrative, one that brings those bees in Teddy’s backyard into play. And Stone continues to showcase her immense talent and bravery. She makes Michelle a forlorn victim yet never loses the tinge of corporate cruelty that likely secured her move to the corner office. Stone’s is a very physical performance too as Michelle is put through the wringer throughout this crazy story.
The bombastic score by Jerskin Fendrix underlines the outrageousness of all we’re watching, and the editing by Yorgos Mavropsaridis ratchets up the tension with each progressive minute. The cinematography from Robbie Ryan keeps us close to all three, almost like we’re a fly, er bee, on the wall, and the whole shebang makes for a raucous sit in the theater. Lanthimos is not only a hugely talented director, but he always swings for the fences, reveling in holding a mirror up to societal absurdities, be they in the dating world, corporate America, castles, or flyover states.
BUGONIA had its Midwest premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival last week, but it opens in theaters nationwide this Friday. See it on the big screen to not only support your local cinema, but also to witness another stunning Lanthimos and Stone collaboration writ large.
