Critic Reviews

Stone and Plemons prove ideal co-conspirators, with carefully balanced performances that have them taking turns as hero and villain without ever quite annihilating our sympathies or winning them outright.

It’s Plemons, who’s always stellar, that proves to be the real revelation.

While it’s been argued that Lanthimos harbours active disdain for other people, Don reminds us that there’s a poignant streak of empathy to be found in even the most nihilistic of his stories. Hope, in Bugonia, is mostly lost. But not entirely.

Bugonia might be as blissfully bonkers as the era of its release, yet don’t let that distract from what a masterclass in directorial control the film represents for Yorgos Lanthimos.

As terrific as Stone is, though, it’s Jesse Plemons who gives the film’s most extraordinary performance.

It’s a serious message delivered in typically entertaining Lanthimos style and hammered home via a bravura climax which manages to be both gonzo and gut-wrenching in equal measure.

It's another triumph from a singular voice in cinema, and another Lanthimos movie you sort of never see coming.

Bugonia isn’t merely dark; it’s a black hole. But Mr. Lanthimos’s vision is sternly compelling, and Bugonia is that exceptional movie that’s extremely hard to forget.

Bugonia is a hilarious movie with no hope for the future of humanity. What optimism there is lies only in the title, an ancient Greek word for the science of transforming dead cows into hives, of turning death into life.

Will Tracy’s screenplay adapts the basic premise and parameters of Jang’s original, but director Yorgos Lanthimos puts his unique tonal spin on the material, turning in one of the most sardonic Hollywood comedy-dramas in recent memory.