Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: BUGONIA (Secret Screening #2) [Fantastic Fest 2025
As secret screenings progress at Fantastic Fest, one always look at running times. There was certain ideas that "One Battle After Another" or "Anaconda" would be considerations but of course "Battle" has a longer running time. One that ended making a lot of sense simply not just because of its genre roots but its ode to something more is Yorgos Lanthimos' "Bugonia" starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons which ended up being Secret Screening #2. In more ways than one, this film points back to his "Killing Of A Sacred Deer" which this reviewer saw when it premiered in Cannes many years ago. Since then his stock has risen and what he has been able to do. He has found a muse in Emma Stone who is willing to go on these kinds of adventures with him. "Bugonia" is no different but it really allows Jesse Plemons to shine as Teddy without diminishing anything of what Stone ends up doing. Lanthimos plays Kubrick a little more here making the banal very eerie especially with the use of music and image placement and movement. Run down rural becomes almost haunting. Plemons as Teddy is a man overcome by a certain thought (progressed by mania or mental health or truth). His mother had something happen to her which is both natural and compounded in his mind and in real life. The use of metaphor especially when black and white is involved is interesting simply for the image it portrays (though it is also interesting in who the actress is playing his mother). What really grounds the film in empathy but barely walking the line of sarcasm is Aidan Delbis playing Don, Teddy's somewhat slower cousin. There is something so trusting and yet tragic about him. It rivets the film between Plemons and Stone...and is really specifically done. Teddy is all Don has and yet Teddy doesn't see any damage he is doing, not by malice, but by existing. Teddy believes he is doing it for the greater good.
Stone plays Michelle Fuller, a corporate CEO who is the focus on Teddy's ire and action and yet the way he approaches her changes in very unique and specific ways. The movioe works on perspective and perception because it is about what Teddy thinks is going on versus what Fuller can ascertain. Enter one law enforcement officer as well as a colony of bees and the baseline is formed because both what could have affected Teddy and what he is seeing. The question becomes whose point of view this movie is. The question lies also in what the reality is. The aspect of what the film is building to unusual. Because of "Sacred Deer", the question becomes metaphorical versus tragic versus what we are actually seeing which is part of Lanthimos' brilliance here. Certain lines thought of in reverse now have actually more power so the film will work well under multiple viewings. As always Lanthimos operates in the realm of the bizarre but this is more structure on realistic ground. Stone is more powerful in a way here than she has been before. When she had a cameo in "Eddington" without much power early this summer, this reviewer felt disappointed in why she would accept such a small role in a scene. This quelled any part of that. An actress of her caliber putting herself out there like this (Her good friend Jennifer Lawrence seems to be doing the same thing with "Die My Love" this fall) is impressive but she obviously trusts Lanthimos implicitly at this point. He knows how to push the audience (and her) but the question is where does the line between absurdist and drama lie. This reviewer is keeping any spoilers close to the vest because that is when Lanthimos' films work best. But "Bugonia" works because of its control, its level of performances from all sides and its artistry...and yet it comes off more connective than any of his previous films, even "Poor Things." A-
By Tim Wassberg
