Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos excels in building icy little bubbles where he makes his characters unleash their acidic selves through reserved, glacial expression. For all the coldness on display, there’s a simmering intelligence that cuts through a sharply formalised world. Clinical world-building gradually reveals detonating undercurrents, a perfect reservoir for the scabrous critiques Lanthimos wants to subject audiences to. The interplay of control and unravelling in his works accelerates them into an absolute rejection of social conventions. Their inherent futility slices through. Lanthimos’ latest, “Bugonia,” premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, vying for the Golden Lion. It was met with a lukewarm reception.
An adaptation of the South Korean hit, “Save The Green Planet!,” “Bugonia” often tends to diffuse in its chamber-drama register. Lanthimos tends to lean into misanthropy, and clearly, this film is emblematic of his recurring obsession. But here, there’s a surfeit of over-pronounced anxieties, all laid siege to the apocalyptic refrains in the narrative. The film boils in tension for a while, but doesn’t sustain the intricacies of its own space for too long. Soon, it just becomes an actorly showcase of a psychological duel.
Bugonia (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with Teddy schooling his cousin Don in a scheme he has in mind. These are hapless, vulnerable people who have to rely on self-victimisation to pull off something momentous. Actually, it’s just Teddy (Jesse Plemons) who’s largely culpable. There’s a social injustice he’s harbouring. He tells Don how humanity is suffering because there are aliens in disguise. It’s they who are taking most of the spoils and making the planet careen to its worst and irretrievable. Hence, the two must step forth and do something.
Teddy coaches Don into accepting his beliefs as gospel truth. The two kidnap Michelle, a CEO of a pharma company, and persuade Don that she’s an alien. The film speeds through the kidnapping, staged with kinetic fluency. Caught unawares, Michelle wakes up to find herself bald. Teddy tells her they’ve shaved her off so that she cannot contact her mother ship. This is when he lets in on his theories about her being an extraterrestrial. Michelle is befuddled and amused. She thinks it’s some sort of joke and suspects ulterior motives that aren’t being uttered. She insists they reveal what it is they actually seek. But they keep at it. Teddy insists she’s part of an Andromedan species that’s infiltrated Earth. He demands she enact the retreat of their species.
What past event connects Teddy and Michelle?
Much of the film unfolds in the basement. Michelle coaxes him to see reason, but he remains undeterred. Nothing can make him budge. He gives her four days within which she must establish contact with her species. A lunar eclipse serves as the index point. Flashbacks establish that Teddy’s mother was the guinea pig for an experiment Michelle’s company carried out. It misfired, leaving her comatose. Michelle buries the tragic incident, but Teddy, a teenager then, has nursed vengeance since. The thirst for retribution led to the kidnapping.
A manhunt begins. Casey, a cop who had known Teddy earlier and used to babysit him, comes knocking. Casey keeps apologising for sexually abusing Teddy in his childhood. When an extreme torture session leaves Michelle unaffected, not denting her withholding any confession, Teddy is convinced she’s an Andromedan empress. Things at dinner escalate, however, as Michelle coolly punctures Teddy’s conviction and dredges up his repressed trauma. Right then, Casey drops by. Somehow, Michelle is brought to the basement.
Must Check Out: Bugonia (2025) Movie Review: An Acidic Enraged Look at Dehumanization with Ruthless Black Comedy
It’s here, removed from Teddy’s presence, Michelle is able to influence Don that she’ll help him. However, Don, who’s also mentally unwell, ends up shooting himself. This alerts Casey, who’s killed by Teddy. Once again, Michelle manipulates Teddy, who kills his mother under a foolish belief. Michelle discovers he had killed many others on suspicion of being aliens. She confesses to Teddy that the Andromedans had hoped the creation of a species that would become more humane, and they would move into the next stage. But humans began fighting among themselves. She tells him she’s convened an appointment at her company with the Andromedans.
Bugonia (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
Is Michelle An Alien?
At the company headquarters, Teddy reveals to Michelle he’s wearing a suicide vest. She nudges him to go into the closet, which she says is the teleportation portal. As soon as he puts himself there, the vest detonates. Her plan is successful. It’s the night of the lunar eclipse. She scoots off the ambulance and gets back to her office closet. She shoots right into the Andromedan chambers, thus affirming that Teddy’s theories were accurate. The experiment on humans has failed. Pinching a bubble, she sets off the complete wipe-out of humanity. The final image shows bees returning to Teddy’s apiary.
Bugonia (2025) Movie Themes Explained:
Capitalist Avarice And Alienation
Thematically, “Bugonia” gets too smug and distant in its critique. Despite its concentrated atmosphere, conversations are too flatly doled out. It relies too heavily on actors to articulate its arguments as well as counter-positions. The sparring between the leads is what serves as the chief pivot of the film. Plemons and Stone do most of the film’s heavy-lifting. Both are electric and riveting.
The latter wields an impermeable exterior, the former projects an attempted, barely held-together antagonism. Both actors bring a calculated mien that shocks and chills by turns. Through Michelle and Teddy, ideologies clash in a hot, charged volcano that threatens to erupt. Who will emerge as the victor? Whose narrative will collapse under scrutiny? Michelle is a worthy rival, not someone who’ll easily crack.
As they go at each other, testing waters and teasing how far the other can go, conversations on human greed and corporatised capitalism stake claim. How much can avarice hollow out humanity before things are tipped and a new reckoning is waged? What does it take for someone to challenge the status quo? How much of it is mere drivel borne of warped echo chambers or genuine paranoia over a world gone kaput over its excess?
There’s a skewering of capitalism and misanthropic disaffection that’s entwined in the film. It goes hand-in-hand with the malaise of alienation and detachment. Michelle is the epitome of modern industrial heartless efficiency that doesn’t flinch at taking innocent lives. Teddy, the vulnerable guy, can only shake things up to an extent. The power remains with Michelle. Capitalism at its wanton extremes can throw ecologies into ruin, push everything overboard. Nothing can be morally salvaged.
Capitalism spares nothing, surging forth with no conscience. When locked in it, humanity turns irredeemable. The internet is all but another weapon in the arsenal of mass destruction. Bugonia” only gets some of it right, especially the rationalising that drifts into echo-chamber politics. The rest of it is a muddle of sorts, hijacked by glossy corporate language summarily laid out by an impeccable Stone.
When someone is consumed by the absoluteness of their assumptions, the results can be terrifying. One can be totally enveloped in their loneliness. Teddy is an example of this. He goes off the rails since he has refused aid and largely been marginalised. The film leaps off this but never advances anywhere poignant, opting instead for all-out farce in the climax.
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