Rexcpectations: Bugonia

Not much to say about this one. “Bugonia” is the latest from Yorgos Lanthimos. The only film of his that I’ve seen is “The Favourite” and let’s just say that it wasn’t my favorite. This film is about a couple of men who kidnap a high-ranking exec (played by Emma Stone) because they believe her to be an alien who is attempting to take over the Earth.

EXPECT: AN OVERLONG TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE
This is a film that has a fairly straight-forward premise and that’s pretty much the movie. There are a couple weird side stories that don’t really add up to much but there isn’t a lot going on for a two hour film. It kind of feels like there was a 70 page script and then more was added to make it feature length. The other issue with the pacing is that it often left you waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead of things happening quickly with a sense of surprise, I often found myself waiting for things to happen already. The last act moves with a bit more pace but I feel like the whole film would have had more tension and more momentum had they trimmed it down a bit.

EXPECT: QUALITY ACTING
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons carry the film with their performances and Aidan Delbis is also quite good. It’s hard to judge comedian Stavros Halkias’s performance because I think it was a fairly thankless role (and a part that seemed like it was tossed in to beef up the page count of the script.) I will say, as good as Plemons is, I felt like this was a role made for Caleb Landry Jones.

For me, Bugonia lands at #13 on my list of 2025 films, in between “Friendship” and “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You”.