Bugonia (2025) [Film Review] — A Darkly Funny, Stingingly Observant Lanthimos Satire

Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia is an absurdist black comedy that pits a paranoid beekeeper and his impressionable cousin against a glamorous biomedical CEO in a bizarre, claustrophobic showdown. Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a grubby, evangelical apiarist convinced that Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is an extraterrestrial threat. Teaming with Donny (Aidan Delbis), Teddy abducts Michelle and subjects her to a grim, ritualistic interrogation born of conspiracy podcasts, fringe theories, and his own physically extreme preparations.

Performances — Raw Physicality Meets Taut Restraint

Plemons anchors the film with a viscous, kinetically physical turn: Teddy’s sweaty fanaticism is both repulsive and oddly magnetic. Emma Stone, bald and exposed, delivers a potent counterweight — part corporate placidity, part volatile human — whose facial economy recalls classic portraits of persecution. Aidan Delbis brings textured vulnerability as Donny, giving the film an emotional hinge between cruelty and bewildered loyalty. The small ensemble keeps the focus laser-sharp on the moral and psychological spelunking at the film’s core.

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Direction & Cinematography — A Measured Visual Bite

Lanthimos loosens some of his usual formal extremes in favor of a more accessible, though still unnerving, visual language. Robbie Ryan’s framing does much of the work: low angles emphasize Teddy’s domineering paranoia while high angles reduce Michelle to a clinical subject — an inversion that keeps us guessing about who the real monster is. The basement’s lighting and the sterile modernist interiors form a stark contrast that visually underlines the gulf between the protagonists’ worlds.

Tone & Themes — Class Fury, Conspiracy, and Human Selfishness

At its heart, Bugonia is an enraged, mordant take on class resentment, corporate power, and the aftershocks of public health crises. Lanthimos stages his satire as a battle of credos — conspiracy-fueled populism versus technocratic language — and refuses to hand the audience an easy moral. Is Teddy a deluded villain or a prophet of justified rage? Is Michelle a villain or a victim? The film luxuriates in that ambiguity, asking viewers to examine their own impulses and the societal structures that birth them.

Pacing & Impact — Spare, Taut, Occasionally Frustrating

The narrative’s restrained scope — largely confined to the abduction and interrogation — keeps the film intense and focused, though some viewers may crave bolder risks. The score and sound design amplify the film’s abrasive undercurrent, and Lanthimos’s choice to structure the drama as a countdown heightens the pressure, even when answers remain elusive.

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Final Verdict — A Sting That Lingers

Bugonia stands as one of Lanthimos’s more immediately approachable works without sacrificing his appetite for moral provocation. It’s a sharp, unsettling black comedy propelled by bravura lead turns and a coolly inventive mise-en-scène. While its moral ambivalence may frustrate those seeking neat catharsis, the film’s wit and bite make it a compelling, memorable entry in contemporary absurdist cinema.

Rating: 7.5 / 10