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Bugonia (2025)

Bugonia is an English language remake of a 2003 Korean film that I am now going to have to watch to compare and contrast. The setup is simple enough. Jesse Plemons plays Teddy and Aidan Delbis plays Don who kidnaps Emma Stone's Michelle who is a powerful Pharmaceutical CEO who they believe is an alien. They shave her head so that they  

The film is essentially a three-hander with Stone and Plemons getting the lion's share of the dialogue but Delbis is still important in this as you end up feeling sympathy for him as it's clear that Teddy is the ‘brains’ of the operation. The question for me is whether Michelle was actually an alien or was this just a case of two conspiracy-theorists being spectacularly wrong. I don't often get to say I guessed it before it was revealed but I did guess it. There was one shot where Emma Stone’s eyes looked a lot bigger than Plemons’ or Delbis. There are some quite tough moments such as when Michelle is being electrocuted whilst Green Day’s Basket Case is playing. Also when Michelle finds the secret room which contains multiple photos of other people that Teddy and Don have done this to.

The film becomes really good to me when Teddy goes to visit his mother because that is when the film starts to go a bit crazy but in a good way. This is also when it's revealed that Michelle was an alien and the human race was basically a science experiment and the film ends with the entire human race dead. Cant think of the last film I saw where everyone dies.

The performances from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are really good. Even when Stone is playing an alien she manages to pull it off. There is something about Jesse Plemons that make him believable whatever character he is playing and as a borderline unstable conspiracy theorist he is very good and you dislike him but brainwashing Don. There is one aspect of the plot that seemed slightly undercooked and that is when it is suggested that Casey the cop did something inappropriate to Teddy and that it may have been child abuse but its never really addressed and then moments later Casey is killed. That could have done with a bit more. 

The discussion of the bee numbers running low did remind me of a Doctor Who episode where the bees disappear because they have gone back home. Anytime a film reminds me of a Doctor Who episode in a good way is always going to sit well with me. 

Despite liking this film and thinking that the performances were really good I don't think this is the best Yorgos Lanthimos film ever but I do think that its a lot of fun is definitely worth seeing because there is something worrying about this film being seen as a documentary to the real Teddy and Don’s of this world who are probably more extreme.


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