Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone collaborate once more and it’s as good as you expect. Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis are also superb. It’s a perfectly paced thriller, with a dark undercurrent that’s never fully explained, takes a jab at many conspiracy theories along the way before its reaches an unexpected conclusion. Genius.

What a waste of a brilliant premise. Despite great performances from the leads, the complete bait and switch of theme makes the entire preceding runtime feel like a waste of time and an insult to the audiences intelligence. I watched this in theatres with friends who walked out saying “Wow I’m so dumb, I didn’t see that ending coming”. And you almost sense that manufactured reaction mattered more to the director than any actual foreshadowing and narrative coherence. Because my friends weren’t dumb, the ending makes absolute zero sense and could only be predicted by someone cynical enough to wonder what the worst possible ending to this film could have been.

For Yorgos Lanthimos, weird has become its own genre of filmmaking. His art flourishes where the inventive meets the bizarre. Although Bugonia is his most accessible film, it never compromises his signature style or unique way of storytelling. And by damn, it works here on every level! What a movie!