{"id":2104864,"date":"2025-10-21T03:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T03:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2104864"},"modified":"2025-10-21T03:56:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T03:56:19","slug":"yorgos-lanthimos-provocative-film-falls-flat-despite-emma-stone-jesse-plemons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/yorgos-lanthimos-provocative-film-falls-flat-despite-emma-stone-jesse-plemons\/","title":{"rendered":"Yorgos Lanthimos’ provocative film falls flat despite Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Cinema needs more provocateurs. We’re living in a crazy world, after all, and the more filmmakers who can hold a funhouse mirror up to everything that’s happening is a win.<\/p>\n

But Yorgos Lanthimos is a provocateur in the way an 8-year-old is when he pulls the wings off insects\u00a0– eager to shock, but more fascinated by the act itself than what it reveals. He has a point to make, but can’t get beyond the infantile fantasy of “wouldn’t it be cool if \u2026”<\/p>\n

In “Bugonia,” his most accessible film since the Academy Award-nominated “The Favourite<\/a>” (2017), billionaire corporate CEO Michelle Fuller (two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone) is kidnapped by conspiracy theorist Teddy (Jesse Plemons<\/a>) and his mentally challenged cousin Don (Aidan Delbis).<\/p>\n

They think she’s an alien plotting the end of humans on Earth. She thinks her shark-like corporate people skills can get her out of this mess. “Let’s have a discussion about where this ends, Teddy,” she says to a nonplussed Plemons.<\/p>\n

So we’re set up for a darkly comic tale of the need to reign in corporate malfeasance versus the dangers of social media disinformation. The problem is, Lanthimos has no interest in exploring issues, just raising them. The Greek-born filmmaker, as usual, undercuts his premise by blowing the ending.<\/p>\n

\n