For individuals who have seen Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Inexperienced Planet!, Yorgos Lanthimos’s up to date American-set remake doesn’t maintain that many surprises or narrative swerves. For individuals who haven’t seen it, don’t Google the ending, however do watch the charmingly scrappy authentic post-viewing. It’s a movie that appears ripe for a remake in these dehumanising instances, the place conspiracy theories rule the web. It options daring and devoted performances from its principal trio of actors, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis and Emma Stone, who promote the depth and absurdity of its hostage state of affairs set-up with intoxicating gusto in a movie packed stuffed with nail-biting pressure and blood and guts pitch-black humour.
Plemon’s Teddy is satisfied the behemoth Amazon-style firm he’s employed by is headed up by an alien, so aided by his cousin Don (Delbis), he decides to kidnap the CEO Michelle (Stone). As soon as the deed is finished, a lot of the movie is spent in Teddy’s basement and residential, the place they interrogate Michelle and ask her to talk to the Emperor alien so as to save humanity and planet Earth from a capitalist dystopian nightmare, which very a lot mirrors our personal actuality.
Lanthimos is adept at depicting cruelty and a claustrophobic atmosphere, and Bugonia is paying homage to his breakthrough movie Dogtooth in that respect. In components, it’s as upsetting, violent and mysterious as that movie because it subtly weaves in themes of betrayals of belief and abuse, however it is usually equally uproariously humorous. Stone, coated in white gooey cream, appears nearly alien-like and her comedic timing and line supply is a whole hoot to observe, as is all of the brilliantly directed slapstick.
Plemons inhabits the dirty, worn-out body of Teddy with a ferocious depth. He makes it troublesome to look away from a person who is ready on a collision course of self-destructive behaviour. Although you realize it is going to all finish horribly, Delbis and Plemons make a hilarious double act, as one leads the opposite into catastrophe. Bugonia cleverly feedback on a power-hungry society gone awry with scathing wit and big empathy for many who get caught up in its manipulative cogs. It’s clearly focused at America and the US healthcare system, however it is usually a damning satirical reflection on the grotesquely ugly world capitalism has created on a wider scale.
Bugonia was seen and reviewed on the London Movie Pageant 2025. It’s in cinemas on 31 October
