Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons Face The Unknowable In Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alien Thriller 'Bugonia'

HOLLYWOOD, CA — A woman. Long hair. Black suit. Two men — one in beekeeper’s gear. They stare. She turns. A flash. A scream. Gone. Wait — is she even real?

An alien abduction sparks Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” a reimagining of the 2003 South Korean cult film “Save the Green Planet!” Riveting and genre-bending, the new film showcases the full arsenal of Lanthimosian absurdism: deadpan performances, surreal narrative turns and a gleeful disregard for logic — all delivered with dry humor and sardonic wit.

The Greek filmmaker has come a long way since his humble beginnings in experimental theater. His early Greek films, “Kinetta” and “Dogtooth,” offered austere provocations built around rigid systems and emotional repression — raw, claustrophobic and unsettling.

Upon crossing into English-language cinema, he brought his absurdist worldview to a broader audience with more ornate and emotionally expressive films such as “The Lobster,” “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.” “Bugonia” continues this trajectory by subverting genre conventions and narrative boundaries.

While “Bugonia” and the original film share the same narrative premise, Lanthimos’ treatment transforms a psychological descent into a philosophical parable, interrogating the dangers of epistemic isolation — the refusal to ask, “What if I’m wrong?”

Ultimately, the quirky sci-fi thriller becomes a meditation on belief, truth and the human need for meaning — even in the absence of logic.

Emma Stone reunites with Lanthimos after her Oscar-winning turn in “Poor Things” and her nuanced performance in “The Favourite.” This time, she plays Michelle Fuller — a biotech CEO whose polished exterior hints at something far more elusive.

That mystique draws the attention of Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a conspiracy theorist and reclusive apiarist, along with his impressionable younger cousin Don (Aidan Delbis).

Why? They believe she is a shape-shifting alien from the Andromedan galaxy, sent to orchestrate humanity’s extinction through biotech manipulation.

Fueled by cosmic paranoia, the cousins abduct Michelle and take her to a remote cabin, convinced they’re saving the world. They time the kidnapping to coincide with a looming lunar eclipse — a moment of planetary reckoning, when they believe she’ll either reveal her true alien form or lead them to the mothership and plead Earth’s case.

To prevent her species from tracing her, they shave her head — believing her hair is a tracking device. The ritual is both absurd and darkly compelling, made all the more visceral by Stone’s real-time transformation, captured in a single take.

It’s a maddening world, where unchallenged beliefs harden into conviction and reason begins to erode. The irony is striking: untraceable — yet expected to deliver salvation.

That paradox exposes the irrational logic driving Teddy and Don’s scheme. It also highlights the destructive nature of echo chambers, where belief reverberates as the absolute truth, bouncing endlessly off padded walls, unchecked. In such environments, belief offers meaning — even when it abandons reason. It becomes ritual, elevating the irrational into the sacred.

In this world, belief doesn’t require logic — only conviction.

Much of the film’s power lies in Stone, Plemons and Delbis, each bringing depth to Lanthimos’ exact vision of paranoia, control and collapse.

Stone, continuing her streak of Lanthimosian heroines, electrifies as Michelle — a cipher-like figure oscillating between beguiling and terrifying. Her shift from passive captive to enigmatic force suggests not just survival, but transcendence, propelling the third act into dazzling territory.

Plemons matches Stone’s gravitas with a steely presence that eventually cracks, revealing a deep-seated desire for retribution tied to his mother’s coma — allegedly caused by Michelle’s biotech firm. His stoic conviction never tips into hysteria, making Teddy’s delusions eerily plausible and his fanaticism all the more chilling.

Newcomer Delbis makes a striking debut as Don, who is more reactive and emotionally porous than Teddy. His performance captures the ebbs and flows of someone desperate to belong, making his loyalty feel more like self-preservation.

These performances thrive under a directorial ethos where restraint and opacity are weaponized, pulling audiences into layered tonal undercurrents of dark comedy and psychological suspense.

Visually, “Bugonia” leans into Lanthimos’ signature aesthetic — sterile interiors, stark landscapes and uncanny framing. The camera’s intercutting angles between the two leads — looking up at Michelle, looking down on Teddy — reinforce their class divide, setting the stage for a spiraling power struggle. The sound design, spare and eerie, amplifies the tension without ever tipping into melodrama.

Where “Bugonia” falters is in the second act. Teddy and Don’s escalating paranoia flattens the emotional stakes, as their delusions become repetitive rather than revelatory. Michelle’s ambiguity begins to stall narrative tension. Her silence, once intriguing, settles into a lull — offering little contrast to the cousins’ unraveling. Without a clearer sense of her interior — fear, strategy or resistance — the power dynamics stagnate, and the suspense loses momentum.

The final act — surreal and cathartic — redeems these shortcomings, transforming delusion into revelation and silence into transcendence. What emerges is a cinematic atmosphere as unsettling as it is darkly profound — one that is unmistakably Lanthimos'.

If you’re drawn to films that provoke more questions than answers and reward close attention, “Bugonia” is your kind of strange. And believe it — sometimes, catharsis arrives barefoot, bald and smeared in antihistamine cream.