Bugonia - Subterranean Homesick Aliens

Bugonia - Subterranean Homesick Aliens

    I made my first blog post about this new movie called Bugonia, which at the time hadn’t even come out yet but now it’s out! Bugonia released in theaters October 31, 2025. The synopsis is short and it details a story about a high ranking CEO getting kidnapped by two men who believe she’s an alien. I’ve watched this movie in theaters and now I’d going to make a short analysis of the content using a 5 step critical process of  media literacy (as detailed by the project instructions). 

    This movies cast is fairly small due to most of the movie being shot within the house the characters reside in with the exception of a couple of scenes. The main casts members include Emma Stone, who plays Michelle Fuller, the high profile CEO and suspected alien. She is well known for various movies such as LaLa Land, Poor Things (same director), and Superbad to name a few. Jesse Plemons plays one of the kidnappers and conspiracy theorists, Teddy. He is well known for his roles in Breaking Bad; El Camino, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Kinds of Kindness. Aidan Delbis plays Don and is the other kidnapper, this movie is Aidan Delbis’s breakout role, he is on the autism spectrum and is a cast member of The Miracle Project, a fully inclusive theater in Los Angeles. A well known comedian, Satvros plays the cop who pops up every now and then to investigate strange occurrences regarding Michelle Fullers disappearance. The director of the movie Yorgos Lanthimos remade this movie the original being Save the Green Planet ! A Korean film made in 2003. Yorgos Lanthimos has made a couple of other films such as Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Lobster, and Dogtooth. He specializes in experimental and at times raunchy movies. 

    On opening weekend Bugonia had made $709,848 (4.5% of total gross) Box office link. Bugonia made $15,840,950 domestically, $14,748,000 internationally and $30,588,950 worldwide! Maybe I’m broke but that’s a lot to me. Besides majority of the sales being domestic, the United Kingdom made up a lot of the international sales which is interesting to me. Italy was second on the list and also the one comparable one, the rest of the countries just had some smaller numbers here and there.

    This movie was made by Yorgos Lanthimos and you can tell. I have only seen one other movie by him so my ideas might be alittle skewed, but in my opinion he has a specific style of directing. The music presented in this movie was similar to Poor Things. During tension there would be intense orchestras playing, and speedy instruments overtaking the scene, making you lean backwards to try and get away. He’s dramatic, the characters are strange and hard to get a grip on which tracks. For me the most noticeable difference within the movies is the color pallets. Poor Things had such bright and distinct color pallets, playing with gray scale as well. Bugonia stays fairly strict on its color pallets but I assume it’s within the limits of the setting, Poor Things had constant setting changes so I find this reasonable. In my opinion I think color still plays an important part, such as Emma Stones character, Michelle Fuller, having a reddish lip and her red coat on for the majority, due to red being such a domineering color it suits the character’s personality. I haven’t seen many sci-fi movies because it’s just not my typical genre this one especially stands out to me because it definitely has a lot of comedic moments. This is also hard to talk about because talking about alien spoils the ending because the movie is a constant idea of, is she or is she not an alien.

    In my opinion I think all movies have some sort of importance or message within them, even if unintentionally and even if I think it’s totally the worst. It just needs to resonate with even one person for it to have a purpose and a place on this earth. Things created by humans have an innate purpose in them because humans are good at becoming attached to things even if they dislike it, get sick of it or whatever else. I think this movie is important and it creates a diverse room for a lot of target audiences. For example general fans of the actors in this movie are going to watch, conspiracy theories will also be geared towards this movie too, people on the autism spectrum might be curious to see Aidan Delbis and his incredible role. This movie is definitely for a younger audience in their 20s or 30s but I think everyone has the capacity to enjoy it. In regards to stereotypes it definitely uses them, Emma Stones character is a typical “girlboss” CEO (heavy on the CEO) her use of corporate language dismisses the kidnappers and shows her pompous views and her idea that she’s “better”. The kidnappers, Teddy and Don are the typical suspects when you think of conspiracy theorist (overweight, underweight, greasy, unstylish, unstable). One thing is that Don’s character is under Teddy’s control, manipulating him and making him follow his plans because he doesn’t have anyone else. I think an autistic character being controlled is also something sort of stereotypical, but it isn’t harmful because Don is humanized, he’s scared, kind and he truly believes Teddy is good because he’s all he has. Personally I think it was tasteful and good autistic representation.

    This movie starts slow, it builds itself up and it becomes strong. You know it’s wrong but you root for Michelle Fuller to receive help. You look around and realize everyone is guilty nobody is a good person but you can’t help but want to root for anybody. This movies improves and is at its best at the end of the second act. You are full of adrenaline and shock, one thing after another, but it ends up falling a little flat. The movie is strong enough in the beginning and end to not completely flop but the ending isn’t a lot of people’s taste, calling it obvious, stupid and pointless people also disliked that some corporate criticisms didn’t delve or lead anywhere special. Rotten Tomatoes On Letterboxd, another film reviewing site most of Yorgos Lanthimos usually rates in between 3.5-4.0 out of 5 so I think it tracks. Honestly it got the same rating as the only other movie I’ve seen by him, Poor Things, which was a 4 out of 5 stars. I think it will be something forgotten soon but treasured by people who hold experimental and strange films on a pedestal. 

    Yorgos Lanthimos does not use social media from what I’ve seen. He has an instagram account but it only has 61k followers and the last post was made in 2014. I haven’t decided to watch any other of his works but I’ve considered watching The Lobster but my watchlist is in the 200s so who knows when I’ll get to it. I watched this movie with my boyfriend at the Eugene Cinemark, he had the same thoughts as me but he really enjoyed it, my friends and family haven’t seen it and it doesn’t sound like their planning on it.

    All and all this movie while having faults was a great watch regardless. It has enjoyable aspects great acting and something for most people. This movie was above average for most critics, and it’s probably a great movie to have on your resume due to it being pretty extreme but everyone kept up the incredible and realistic portrayals despite the movies crazy developments. I hope to see Aidan Delbi’s career continue to grow and Emma Stones partnership with Yorgos Lanthimos to flourish even further.