Emma Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the ambitious CEO of a powerful pharmaceutical and biotech company. Her rise is meteoric, her company’s reach vast—but beneath the glossy surface lies a trail of damage and suspicion.
Meanwhile, Jesse Plemons’ character Teddy Gatz, a disillusioned warehouse-worker and beekeeper by trade, is haunted by his mother’s collapse—she was once a test subject in Michelle’s company’s drug trials. Teddy is convinced the world is under threat. He believes that Michelle is not just a ruthless executive: she is a member of an alien species from the Andromeda galaxy, here to annihilate humanity and reshape Earth in their image.
Together with his cautious cousin Don, Teddy abducts Michelle and holds her captive in the basement of their rural home. He forces a brutal ritual: Michelle’s head is shaved, her identity stripped, as Teddy prepares for a “countdown”—a pending lunar eclipse that he believes will enable the alien invasion. During the captivity, Michelle oscillates between defiance and manipulation, attempting to assert her power even from her chains. Don, neurodivergent and quietly skeptical of Teddy’s escalating violence, begins to question the morality of their mission.
As days pass, the power dynamics shift. Michelle offers deals, reveals past tragedies, and seems to toy with the question: who is really the alien? The deeper the standoff goes, the more blurred the lines become between predator and prey, truth and delusion. In a shocking finale, the story reaches its cosmic crescendo: Michelle’s true nature is revealed, Teddy’s resistance collapses, and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Key Elements
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A hostage-drama framework serves as the film’s skeleton, with a claustrophobic setting and two ideological forces locked in confrontation.
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Themes of corporate malfeasance, conspiracy culture, alienation and identity swirl together, creating a surreal though grounded narrative.
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The film’s title, Bugonia, references an ancient idea of spontaneous generation of bees from carcasses—an echo of transformation, decay and renewal in the story.
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The setting is modern yet timeless: a world where technology and power are omnipresent, but belief and fear still hold sway.
Why It Matters
This synopsis tells a story that is more than sci-fi. At its heart, Bugonia is a meditation on what happens when systemic power meets deep-seated suspicion, when humans feel both oppressed and alien, and when the line between victim and oppressor dissolves. There’s no simple button-press resolution—just a spiralling descent into questions of who we are and what we might become.