Bugonia – 1.5 stars

Like all Yorgos Lanthimos films, Bugonia is adept, thought out, and at times, mesmerizing. Slowly but surely, the viewer is drawn into Lanthimos’ vibe in his story of a mentally ill conspiracy theorist (Jesse Plemons) convinced that the CEO of a corporate behemoth (Emma Stone) is, in fact, an alien deposited on Earth to kill us all. With his hapless, dim cousin (Aiden Delbis), Plemons kidnaps Stone to make her fess up and save humanity.

Unfortunately, Lanthimos quickly reverts to his sweet spot, rank sadism. Of his pictures, Poor Things is the only one I like. In re-making the Frankenstein story with an innocent (Stone, again), he allowed for joy and humor as she explored her boundless lust and curiosity while clashing with societal convention.

Here, like The Lobster and The Favourite, Lanthimos is artfully back to picking wings from flies. His mean-spirited abuse of his characters – in particular, Delbis, an Of Mice and Men Lenny-type – is capped off with a grandiose coda that expresses just how much he really does hate people.

Lanthimos’ conceit is that he is delivering something of import – be it commentary on environmental cataclysm, the perils of the internet, or corporate soullessness – but really, he’s just a nasty brute with a good eye. If it weren’t for the game efforts of Plemons and Stone, who can be captivating in their cat-and-mouse exchanges, this would have been a zero.

On Netflix.