BUGONIA - Mark Reviews Movies

Bugonia, Focus Features

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 23, 2025

Teddy (Jesse Plemons), the unlikely protagonist of Bugonia, is certain he knows why everything in his life has gone as badly as it has. He wants it to be true. No, this man needs it to be true, because it's all he has left at this point, really.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos' film, a remake of a 2003 South Korean one called Save the Green Planet!, doesn't necessarily sympathize with Teddy (unlike its source material), but it does want to understand him. The man keeps bees on a farm that has been in his family for some time, but like his family, the honeybees are disappearing or dying. There are several scientific theories as to why this is happening, as it has been in the real world for some time, but Teddy can do nothing about climate change, the widespread use of pesticides, or whatever else might be causing the constantly dwindling numbers of bees around the world.

He desperately wants to do something, though. No, he needs to do something, because bees are more than just bees for him at this point. Teddy requires a target—a tangible thing that or person whom he can influence or make some real effect for change. The man finds it in Michelle (Emma Stone), the CEO of a company that has its hands in many fields, including agricultural chemicals. She's as good a start and, in Teddy's mind, hopefully an end to solving the problems that have plaguing him for so long.

His plan is to abduct Michelle and hold the corporate mogul hostage. On the surface, that would seem to make Will Tracy's screenplay into a thriller, but there's a hitch to the setup. Teddy's plan has nothing to do with holding the CEO for ransom or convincing her to stop some specific practice or product of her company. Teddy believes Michelle is actually an alien from Andromeda Galaxy in disguise—part of a secretive but widespread invasion with the specific goal of slowly but steadily destroying humanity.

This is ridiculous, of course, so that must make Lanthimos' film a comedy, right? In a way, it certainly is—and a darkly funny one, too. Teddy and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) aren't really prepared for the task of abducting someone and convincing the person to do what the want, especially when the person is as strong-willed as Michelle and the task they demand of her is so patently absurd. There's humor in that, for sure, as the pair bumble and fumble and stumble their way around this scheme.

Nothing about this film, particularly where and how far it ultimately goes in making a much larger point about humanity and humankind's place on this planet, is that simple, however. This is a frightening film, because it observes the lengths to which someone who is obsessed with an idea and wholly convinced of being in the right will go. It is a funny one, because it juxtaposes that conviction with the irrationality of Teddy's beliefs and his general incompetence. It is also an intrinsically melancholy film, because Tracy, Lanthimos, and Plemons use all of these details to make Teddy into a wholly believable presence. The film is scary, amusing, and sad, because this guy is all of those things, too.

The screenplay here is filled with assorted twists and turns (as many as the original film, by the way, although the structure and streamlining of Tracy's adaptation makes it feel different), but the focus throughout remains locked on Teddy in such a way that keeps all of those developments grounded. It's uncomfortable to watch—at first because of who Teddy is, on account of what he's willing to do as the story proceeds, and finally because we learn he is as trapped in this place, albeit in a less-literal way, as his captive. There is no other way this man's life could have turned out, perhaps, and that sense of doom hovers over the story—much as Teddy imagines an Andromedan spaceship will be hovering over Earth in a few days' time.

The plot itself is so simple that it doesn't really need more summarizing, although some basics might help. Teddy and Don nab Michelle at her house, inject her with a sedative (after taking repeated hits and kicks from the athletic CEO), and restrain her in the basement of the farmhouse. Teddy wants her to record a message for her alien overlords, so that he can plead on humanity's behalf. Obviously, Michelle doesn't know how to respond to this demand, because it is unbelievable on its face.

Stone's performance is compelling, too, because there's nothing especially sympathetic about the character. Well, there isn't, that is, beyond the circumstances of her captivity—bad enough, without the implausible reason behind it, which means there's no logical way for her to get out of the situation, either. In his debut performance, Delbis is quite good as the cousin, who really has nothing other than Teddy, desperately wants to please him, and knows that what's happening is wrong.

Much of the more potent impact of this film comes in its final stretch, which can't be discussed for obvious reasons. Either way, the buildup to it is a tonally nimble examination of its conspiracy-minded protagonist, the loneliness and hopelessness that can lead to such a mindset, and the laser-focused determination for him to be right. Bugonia is a pointed character study and a clever battle of wits, but those final moments are genuinely stunning.

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