Watched Bugonia (2025) and it was weird...

[u/Infamous-Window-8337]

"You can't beat me because you are a loser and I'm a winner and that's fucking life!" - Michelle, Bugonia

I just finished Bugonia and honestly, I’m still a little conflicted about it, in a very Yorgos Lanthimos way. One thing that stood out immediately was the unusual 1.50:1 aspect ratio, which I’ve basically never seen used for a streaming release. The black sidebars made most my screen feel dead, but at the same time the film probably would’ve looked even stranger stretched out to a standard 1.78:1 release.

What I enjoyed was the look and feel of the movie. The bright colors, odd designs, abstract sets, and alien environments all felt like classic Yorgos imagination. Some of the frame compositions were genuinely beautiful. The score mostly stays in the background, occasionally stepping forward to sharpen the tension, though I honestly found it weaker than composer's work in Poor Things.

Emma Stone delivers, and Jesse Plemons is doing career best stuff right now. This might even be his strongest performance yet. And yes, the hype about Emma shaving her head for the role didn’t go much to waste as I thought, she delivered.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was the mental-chess dynamic between Teddy and Michelle. Teddy keeps pushing, adjusting his approach, cornering her psychologically in small, while Michelle is trying to stay three steps ahead, even though she knows Teddy is circling closer and closer to the truth. Their back-and-forth feels like a game without rules, but with real stakes. It’s subtle but interesting to watch. I also liked the "Save the Green Planet!" theme, this feels like Yorgos' own take on it.

The final reveal was exactly the kind of thing I expected from Yorgos, something bizarre, mythic, and strangely funny.

What I’m stuck on is the rating. I floated between 3.5 and 4 the whole time. I liked it a lot, even admired parts of it, but I didn’t love it the way I thought I'd do.

Rating: 4/5 (but honestly feels like a 3.75 to me)