General News
21 November, 2025
At the movies: Alien race and planet control
Take a look at what's on the bill this weekend at The Rex in Charlton.
A SURREAL, bizarre and darkly comic film, Bugonia unites the talents of Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in a movie sure to amplify social commentary when it screens at The Rex in Charlton this weekend.
Directed by film maker Yorgos Lanthimos’ (Poor Things, The Lobster, The Favourite), Bugonia is loosely based on the 2003 South Korean cult thriller, “Save the Green Planet” – highlighting the interaction humans have on the planet.
Bugonia is about Beekeeper Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) – two crazed conspiracy theorists - who hatch a scheme to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), who is the CEO of a big biotech firm, believing that she is one of the high-intelligence alien race from Andromeda who is controlling humans on earth.
Restraining Michelle in his dingy basement, Teddy’s verbal confrontations with the high-powered CEO begin politely, but her cool and insinuating words rile him, exposing his many layers of grief, trauma, bitterness and disillusionment, especially concerning politics.
Referencing a multitude of themes across the human condition - class conflict, corporate greed, abuse, big pharma, internet-based conspiracy theory and revenge of the little guy – we are unsure if the unnervingly in control Michelle – even when she is incapacitated –really is from the otherworldly planet.
Stellar performances by Stone and Plemons are complimented by autistic actor Aidan Delbis in the role of Teddy’s cousin.
This is a movie to stimulate the brain cells, so why not give it a go!
Bugonia is a Greek word from antiquity meaning “oxen-born”. People believed that bees could spontaneously arise from the decaying flesh of a sacrificed bull, thereby creating a conceptual reference for death and renewal.
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