Who Do You Believe in Bugonia?

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Who Do You Trust in Bugonia?

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By Ben Elliott

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Conspiracy theories used to be fun.

Fodder for 90s television like The X-Files and History Channel documentaries, they played into the lingering mistrust of post-Watergate America. Still, these ideas felt silly enough to be waved away by mainstream audiences. But the idea that the truth — a real truth — was out there and being withheld by shadowy gatekeepers has steadily taken root over the last 30 years. Sift through our current discourse and you’ll find the concept influencing everything from the news media to the highest levels of government.

Two friends chasing floating legs in a red room from House, 1977

Bugonia, 2025

So when Bugonia, the new thriller coming to The Triplex this week, dives down the rabbit hole, the craziest thing about it is how normal it all feels. We ride along with Teddy and Don, two cousins who plan to abduct Michelle, the CEO of a biomedical company, who they believe to be an alien sent to destroy the Earth.

Boxed in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, director Yorgos Lanthimos keeps things stark and simple, focusing on the dynamic showdown between Emma Stone’s Michelle and Jesse Plemons’ Teddy. Lanthimos holds his cards close, leaving the audience to study every darting stare and facial tic exchanged between captor and prisoner to discern where the truth lies.

A young woman holding a severed head in House, 1977

Bugonia, 2025

No matter how its plot unfolds — Michelle is either an alien sent to destroy Earth or merely an amoral executive ruining lives in a more banal, acceptable way — there’s no happy ending coming. But strangely, Bugonia feels like Lanthimos’s most optimistic film yet after exercises in discomfort like The Lobster, The Favourite, and Poor Things.

While those films saw a director confronting his audience with life’s ugly truths, Bugonia reads like a plea to break free of the doomed mindset that increasingly feels like the status quo. We have to do something, anything, to save this world — no matter how crazy it may seem.

Showtimes

Showtimes Blue Moon | 2:00PM, 8:30PM Bugonia | 2:15PM, 5:15PM, 8:00PM Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere | 2:30PM, 5:30PM, 8:15PM Klute | 5:00PM

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