Bugonia (2025)

Michelle (Emma Stone) is CEO of a high-profile biomedical company: rich, demanding, materialistic. Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a low-level laborer in that company, is convinced she's not what she seems to be. To stop her plans, Teddy ropes his trusting cousin into abducting her and holding her hostage until she admits the truth.

Yorgos Lanthimos movies are hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes I am annoyed by what feels like a deliberately false style while, in other films, the weirdness just works. Bugonia is one of hits, right up there with The Favourite and Poor Things. I really liked the slow reveal of Teddy's backstory and how trauma could have driven him to seek a concrete target to slay. I was also really into Michelle's savvy manipulations -- her refusal to admit the upper hand may no longer be hers.

This one's a winner.

B+