Bugonia movie review: Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in anxiety-fuelled conspiracy theorist thriller comedy

Everyone knows someone that casually mentions a conspiracy theory in mixed company.

Most of these interactions – “Steven Spielberg is secretly a Scientologist”, “Paul McCartney actually died in 1966” – are relatively harmless, eliciting little more than a “I don’t think that’s right” or an eye-roll and amused perse of the lips shared between those listening.

But increasingly, we all also know someone whose YouTube rabbit holes are not so quirky or cute.

The ones who will argue, until they’re blue in the face, that aeroplane contrails are actually chemtrails and evidence of the government poisoning people on purpose, or that 5G towers gave people Covid, or that lizard people are in charge of the UN.

We have seen the very real-world consequences of what happens when flat earthers latch onto a dangerous theory such as, oh, say, Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

These are strange times we’re living in, and naturally, art reflects the moment.

Bugonia is a remake of a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet! but it feels as if it was birthed now, capturing the conspiracy-addled, heightened and bizarre reality of 2025.

Technically, Bugonia could even be classified as a satire, but even its most outlandish flourishes (except for the ending, which two months after the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival, I’m still processing) feels as if they could happen, and it wouldn’t even survive the 24-hour news cycle into a second day.

The movie is a reunion between Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, who after four projects together are clearly keyed into each other’s vibe, and their second with Jesse Plemons, who was in last year’s Kinds of Kindness.

Plemons plays Teddy, a conspiracy theorist who, along with his neurodivergent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), plan and execute the kidnapping of Michelle Fuller, the chief executive of a pharmaceutical company.

Teddy is a nervy guy who is convinced that Michelle is secretly an alien from Andromeda whose species have infiltrated Earth and is responsible for all that ills it. They shave her head because they believe her hair is how she communicates with her ship, and cover her in thick cream.

Chained in the basement to a cot, Michelle uses her corporate wiles to try and take control of the situation, determined to dominate these two men she thinks should be easily manipulated by her superior intellect and will.

It’s a fascinating conflict. On each side is a modern archetype (the rich elite versus the economically marginalised, mediocre men versus the accomplished woman) embodied through these characters, each trying to maintain or claw for dominance.

Stone has done some of her best work with Lanthimos, including in Poor Things, one of her two Oscar-winning performances, and it’s clearly a wonderful collaboration.

There is no vanity in how she plays Michelle, and not just because she shaved her head and allowed herself to come across as infuriating and cold. Her timing is impeccable and she has this ability to command and hold your attention.

But as much as Stone is fabulous, as she almost always is, Bugonia belongs to Plemons. The desperation, the righteousness and just the sweatiness makes Teddy both magnetic and repulsive. Beneath the zany conviction is someone with a lot of pain.

That we’re asked to sit in his space, both mental and physical, is Bugonia challenging the audience to reconsider these outcasts.

Not that he’s been held up as some crusading hero, even if that’s his estimation of his mission. He is still worthy of empathy, even when we’re laughing at him.

Lanthimos’s films including The Lobster and Dogtooth always find the absurd humour in uncomfortable or distressing situations, even in home invasion thriller Killing of a Sacred Deer. He knows how to work the balance so that one plays off the other.

While Bugonia, written by Will Tracy (Succession, The Menu) is not as bitingly funny as The Favourite and Poor Things, two Lanthimos movies penned by Australian scribe Tony McNamara, it still has plenty of wry and cringe humour.

Because if we can’t have the occasional laugh at conspiracy theorists and the escalating state of modern anxiety, then the only left to do is to cry big blubbery tears of despair.

Rating: 3.5/5

Bugonia is in cinemas on October 30