I postponed watching this expecting something impenetrably strange – I’d never seen a Lanthimos film before. But Bugonia surprised me with how engaging it is, balancing dark humor that’s subtle rather than absurdist with genuine thriller tension.
Plemons and Stone are exceptional, playing a paranoid conspiracy theorist and ice-cold CEO in a basement standoff that becomes increasingly unhinged. The satire on corporate power, conspiracy culture, and environmental collapse never feels heavy-handed, and the film keeps you genuinely uncertain about what’s real.
The middle section does drag… about 20 minutes could’ve been trimmed without losing anything. Some interrogation scenes feel repetitive, and the pacing sags before the third act.
But that final act? It pulls everything together with a gutsy, bleak payoff that’s both darkly funny and genuinely haunting.
At 7/10, this works for me as an accessible entry point to Lanthimos’s style, while delivering thought-provoking sci-fi satire that lingers uncomfortably.
