Film Review: Bugonia (2025)
Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5)
Bugonia is a film that feels perpetually on the edge of greatness — sharp in concept, brimming with talent, yet ultimately undone by its own tonal indecision. Director Yorgos Lanthimos once again assembles a stellar cast, with Emma Stone, Jessie Plemons, and newcomer Aidan Delbis turning in uniformly excellent performances. Each actor brings a palpable sense of unease and ambiguity to their roles, grounding a story that thrives on uncertainty.
At its best, Bugonia is a fascinating mirror held up to our current conspiracy-laden culture — a world where truth is fractured, and even the act of seeing is no longer believing. The film cleverly toys with perception and manipulation, constantly shifting its moral compass so that audiences are never quite sure who’s right, who’s wrong, or if those labels even matter anymore. It’s in these moments of moral murkiness that the film feels bold, refusing to offer easy answers or clean divisions between heroes and villains.
However, the film’s commitment to ambiguity doesn’t extend to its tone — and that’s where it falters. Bugonia never fully decides whether it wants to be a cerebral psychological thriller, a biting satire, or a surrealist sci-fi parable. The result is a disjointed experience that often feels like three different movies struggling for dominance. The third act, in particular, collapses under its own ambition. What begins as haunting and provocative descends into something bordering on absurdity, trading tension for spectacle and coherence for chaos. By the time the credits roll, much of the film’s earlier intrigue has evaporated.
Still, Bugonia deserves credit for aiming high and for trusting its audience enough to live in moral gray space — something rare in modern studio filmmaking. It’s a film worth discussing, if not necessarily one worth revisiting.
Verdict: Smart, stylish, and well-acted, but fatally inconsistent — a thought experiment that loses focus when it matters most.
