Bugonia Review: Emma Stone Has Found Her Perfect Director Collaborator, And I Hope They Keep Making Movies Together Forever

The rise of Emma Stone has been a remarkable thing to witness over the last 20 years. It’s not easy for an actress to stand out as a romantic interest in a boy-centric party comedy, but that’s exactly what she managed to do starring opposite Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in 2007’s Superbad, and her cinematic journey since then has been special to follow. 2010’s Easy A proved that she had true star potential, and while she has had some duds on her resume since then (find me an actor who doesn’t have at least a few), 2016’s La La Land affirmed her as a true A-lister – but her collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos has sent her into a new stratosphere.

The run of The Favourite, Poor Things, and Kinds Of Kindness is unequivocally one of the greatest filmmaker/actor collaborations in modern Hollywood, with the Greek writer/director able to consistently push the range of his star. And while they will be henceforth immensely challenged to outdo their 2023 dark comedy riff on Frankenstein that is Poor Things, their streak of outstanding joint work has continued to expand in 2025 with Bugonia. It’s not their best movie together, but that’s more reflective of a high quality bar than anything else: it’s a story with some organic flaws, but it’s an intimate and tremendous actor showcase that very much has its finger on the pulse of our current world despite being based on another film that is over 20 years old.

A remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save The Green Planet! from filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan, Bugonia also reunites Lanthimos with Kinds of Kindness’ Jesse Plemons – who stars as conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz. Being terminally online and having suffered a number of personal tragedies, Teddy is convinced that the world is being secretly manipulated by an alien species called Andromedans, who live alongside us disguised as humans, and he has a plan to fix everything. Fully committed to the cause, he successfully enlists his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) on a key mission: he wants to kidnap pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), whom he is convinced is an extraterrestrial who can set up a meeting between him and the Andromedan emperor.

The abduction is a success, as Teddy and Don capture their target without being seen, bring her to their shared home, and lock her up in her basement. With Michelle’s head shaved – her hair supposedly usable for communication with her species – and her body covered in ointment that is supposed to limit her alien abilities, she tries to convince her captors that she is a normal human being, but between Teddy’s extreme obsession and Don’s quiet acceptance of the plan, it’s an uphill battle with extremely high stakes.

Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis make a tremendous on screen pair with a fascinating dynamic.

To really dig into Emma Stone’s brilliant work, one must first discuss and respect the tremendous performances from Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis (the latter making his big screen debut with the feature). Teddy is our protagonist in this tale, bringing Don along as the audience surrogate into his tangled web of conspiracies and cosmic puppeteering, and it’s a fascinating dynamic that is handled with both authority and elegance by the actors. If Teddy lived down the street from you, you’d most definitely register him as an oddball to keep at a distance, but his confidence in his research is also charismatic and magnetic… much to the detriment of Don, who registers the moral implications of what they are doing and questions the legitimacy of the reasoning, but also needs the companionship and approval of the only other person in his life.

It’s sad (especially because of how accurately it serves as a metaphor for so many lives in the current stage of the internet age), but it’s also darkly hilarious – which is principally a credit to the male stars. Plemons consistently keeps a blend of grief and anger behind Teddy’s eyes, but the way in which he presents his outrageous convictions with such conviction is incredibly funny at times (This is a man who believes that he has successfully rendered a full 3D model of the Andromedan ship). Delbis, meanwhile, is a wonderful foil, offering remarkable reactions drenched in incredulity as Teddy spews nonsense, but also projecting a wonderful innocence and supportiveness that says everything about the character.

Emma Stone is nothing less than unbridled excellence.

A film needs a real ass-kicker to go up against the energy on the nutball side of the story – but I suppose that just means that cinephiles everywhere should once again be grateful that Emma Stone has clicked so well with Yorgos Lanthimos. It wasn’t really that long ago that she was on screen making tiramisu in home ec and throwing a house party with her parents out of town, but now she has the capacity to be a full-on wrecking ball. Simple stills from Bugonia showcase her commitment to the unglamorous performance – her head shaved, her skin slathered with white cream, and most of her scenes set in a dank basement – but Teddy and Don’s efforts to suppress Michelle’s ability can’t subdue the awesome of Stone.

I noted Teddy as the film’s protagonist earlier, which is the reality in the classic sense of the word, but Stone has Michelle effectively wrestle Plemons’ character for that title with her turn. She is clearly to be reckoned with from the start, as a badass montage in the first act sees her executing a diligent exercise and health routine before turning everyone’s heads as she makes her way in for a normal day of work, and her power only becomes more apparent once she has been taken. Following her capture, she delivers a monologue methodically laying out the serious trouble in which the men have found themselves with the abduction – offering the tenor of a dead serious board meeting – and when Teddy admits in reaction that the speech put him on his heels, the audience can wholly empathize.

Michelle is very smart (much smarter than both Teddy and Don), and watching Stone calculate her circumstances, execute a stratagem, deal with the consequences, and repeat is a constant delight – shifting from stoking fear, to placating, to bargaining, and on. They have her at a disadvantage physically, but the actress is effortlessly compelling in her efforts to outthink her captors.

Bugonia has a great deal going for it, but the plot is also naturally flawed.

The escalating tensions between the three principal characters and the performances from the stars are what make Bugonia worth seeking out on the big screen, with Lanthimos’ unique sensibilities ever accentuating the bizarre – with intense close-ups, stark black-and-white flashbacks that push the pedal down on the fantastical, and interludes depicting a flat Earth counting down the days to the next lunar eclipse (when the Andromedan ship will be within range for contact). There is, however, also an inherent flaw in the storytelling that the movie can’t quite transcend, and it has the effect of both limiting the director’s ability to go full-bore weird and preventing it from effectively get across what is a mostly great commentary about our internet-fried world. I can’t say much more about it in this spoiler-free space, but it can be said that there ends up being a bit of a letdown in the third act, and you can see it coming right from the very start of the film.

Bugonia is an off-beat comedy that is fittingly arriving in late October (it will make for a fine cinematic experience on Halloween, when it goes into wide release), and while it’s not Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos at the top of their game, it is nonetheless a fine reminder of their excellence and how well they match as collaborators. Both are presently amongst the greatest talents in their respective fields, and their latest only furthers the case for that argument.