Bugonia (2025) is a Hollywood remake of a 2003 South Korean film built on an audacious premise: two conspiracy theorists kidnap a pharmaceutical CEO whom they believe to be a secret alien, convinced that her species covertly rules over humanity.
Their plan is to use her as a hostage to negotiate the liberation of mankind from its extraterrestrial puppet masters.
The operation is led by Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a permanently-online conspiracy theorist who has appointed himself saviour of the world, and his reluctant cousin Donny, his only living family member and friend.
As hairbrained as it is quixotic, the scheme unravels into one misstep after another, each rectified by increasingly depraved criminal acts.
These horrors are cushioned by Lanthimos’ signature irreverence, surrealism, and dark humour. The plot is delivered through sharp dialogue, intentional editing, and superb performances.
The soundtrack also draws the audience into the characters’ delusions of grandeur, which sharply contrast with their realities, to hilarious effects. For example, sometimes bombastic orchestras swell while the protagonists may be only doing something mundane like commuting to work.
Through these stylistic choices, the audience is pulled directly into not just the madness in their minds, but also the real horrors of the world that made them who they are.
A sick society
The film’s most compelling achievement is its account of how Teddy became who he is, unfurled alongside the plot through skillfully paced revelations, often delivered in surreal montages.
In everyday life, Teddy labours under exploitative conditions at the delivery warehouse of a pharmaceutical conglomerate – the very same corporation whose pollution put his mother into a prolonged coma years earlier, killing several of his and Donny’s family members.
The two boys grew up at the margins of society with no one who cared for them, and the perpetrators are never held responsible.
The only person who checks in on Teddy is the local sheriff, Casey (Stavros Halkias). However, this is not out of genuine care, but out of Casey’s guilt for having molested Teddy as the latter’s babysitter years ago, a crime which he never paid for as he remains in a position of authority.
Living under such oppression and isolation, with no alternatives offered by society, it is no accident that Teddy’s mind has been warped beyond repair. His hatred for injustice and yearn for dignity thus came out in the most deranged manner.
None of this excuses Teddy’s crimes, the most egregious of which is manipulating Donny into self-mutilation. But it does explain how a person becomes so twisted. Jesse Plemons portrays this distorted soul brilliantly, projecting a meek exterior that barely contains a menacing intensity.
An alien class
Opposite Teddy and Donny stands Michelle Fuller, the pharmaceutical CEO played by Emma Stone.
In a few efficient scenes, the film establishes her as a high-powered ‘girlboss’ executive who lives in luxury, supplicated by employees and corporate journalists. Whether extraterrestrial or not, her class privileges are alien to the vast majority of humanity.
Her character is wholly congruent to her profession. She shoots vacuous diversity training videos and sternly proclaims the end of overwork – while in the same breath reminding staff that “we are running a business here”, and their work must be finished regardless of their official hours.
Even in captivity, she treats her kidnappers with the steely contempt of a boss, reminding them her socio-economic worth far exceeds theirs.
At one point she admits her company caused the disaster that killed members of Teddy’s family, while washing her hands of any responsibility. It soon becomes unclear who the real criminal is.
Conspiracy theories
Bugonia’s plot is fictional, but its setting is not unrealistic. The world is indeed governed by a parasitic ruling class whose profit-seeking schemes ruin millions of lives, while they themselves live in unimaginable luxury.
In the United States, pharmaceutical corporations are particularly despised for their stranglehold over privatised healthcare, to the point that when Luigi Mangioni carried out his vigilante act against a health insurance CEO, he won widespread support.
When society is so visibly divided along class lines and descending into a deeper crisis, it is only natural some will look to conspiracy theories for an explanation.
Although mostly speculative, conspiracy theories often contain a grain of truth: the world is indeed run by a class of secretive and monstrous people in positions of power, as confirmed by the revelations in the Epstein files.
The problem is that conspiracy theories misidentify this-or-that evil individual as the source of society’s woes, rather than the decay of the system itself.
More fundamentally, conspiracy theories overlook the power of the working class to change society. This is why they often draw reactionary conclusions about what is to be done to fix society.
Communists substitute conspiratorial speculation for an objective, scientific analysis of society. The capitalist system itself rewards and elevates monstrous characters into the ruling class. But the working class, which actually operates society, has the power to overthrow that system.
Teddy himself admits he tried political movements of every stripe – even Marxism – before taking up his doomed adventure. But it is precisely Marxist theory that points the way towards overthrowing the cabal of bourgeois overlords, and saving our world.
