Screenplay by Will Tracy – Based on Save the Green Planet! (2003) by Jang Joon-hwan Produced by Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Ari Aster, Lars Knudsen, Miky Lee, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko
Main Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone, etc.
Cinematography by Robbie Ryan
*** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
Yorgos Lanthimos has once again sneaked out of his uncanny terrarium and unleashed another piece of beautifully deranged cinema. Bugonia(2025)—a remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s cult classic Save the Green Planet!—is part sci-fi fever dream, part hostage farce, and part spiritual meltdown. It’s like Ruthless People (1986) got trapped in a socio-political, beekeeping suit and force-fed ayahuasca.
Will Tracy’s script hums with the manic energy of someone who’s read too many conspiracy subreddits and decided to turn it into Oscar bait. The film pairs Jesse Plemons (whose face seems genetically engineered for moral unease) with Alden Delbis (playing his twitchy, Kool-Aid-eyed partner in cosmic delusion) as two eco-anarchist truthers who kidnap a pharma/tech CEO, played with imperial chill by Emma Stone. Their reasoning? Well, just wait and see. It is incredibly crazy with some severe plot turns. Yet, somehow Lanthimos and his terrific cast maintain verisimilitude within the setting and just about hang onto emotional connection for the characters.
What follows is a deranged pas de trois of torture, empathy, and total philosophical collapse. Plemons and Delbis interrogate Stone with the intensity of people who’ve seen too many YouTube conspiracy documentaries, while Lanthimos and cinematographer, Robbie Ryan shoot it with the intensity of a nature documentary directed by Lucifer. There are bees. There is honey. There are monologues about pollution, pharmaceutical company threat and environmental collapse. Further, Stone, who has now fully ascended into Lanthimos’ personal pantheon of holy weirdness, plays her role like a woman being both worshipped and flayed at the same time. She’s terrifyingly serene—like she’s founded a doomsday cult and smiled through the apocalypse.
It’s all utterly ridiculous, but Bugonia (2025) thrives in that space between laughter and dread. Lanthimos once again proves that absurdism isn’t about nonsense—it’s that nonsense is the only sane response to the modern world. I enjoyed this film way more than the obtuseKinds of Kindness (2024). It has more akin, although not as devastatingly memorable, as his earlier Greek-language classics or The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). Moreover, ifThe Favourite (2018) was about power, and Poor Things (2024) was about rebirth, Bugonia (2025) is bleak, fatalistic morality tale about environmental apocalypse.
By the time the film’s final shots roll I was equal parts horrified, moved, and deeply amused. It’s an eco-horror-comedy that gorily plays likeSaw (2004) meets famous beekeeping philosopher, Aristotle. Overall, Bugonia (2025) proves once again that Yorgos Lanthimos is cinema’s reigning apiarist of absurdity—and his audience are all his buzzing little drones.
As a balding man I felt it my duty to raise my concerns about the desperately poor wig-work that has occurred down the years in the movies. The wigs, actors chosen suck because they are so appalling and the filmmakers should have let the actor go natural to avoid discriminatory practices against baldies.
Obviously, for sci-fi, historical, and comedy films wigs are used in context and for humorous purposes so I have generally avoided picking on those but for the examples used there is NO EXCUSE! They are a travesty and deeply hurtful to the bald community. As Larry David says: Baldism is a proper thing.
10. IT LOOKS STUPID!
Okay, I understand certain characters require wigs especially if they wore them in real life like Phil Spector as played recently by Al Pacino but generally Movie Wigs look dumb. It’s fine if it’s in the context of the character such as American Hustle (2013) where Bale’s character was shown to be vain but when an actor has what looks like a ferret stapled to his or her head then I’m thinking less of the movie as I’m too busy laughing at it.
9. IT’S DISCRIMINATION!
I started watching the decent-enough movie TransSiberian (2008) on Netflix and Woody Harrelson’s character is wearing an obvious wig. Harrelson has played some fine bald heroes in his time most notably in the brilliant Zombieland (2009) but he’s let us right down in this movie. His character was a nice guy in it so by giving him a syrup and spectacles are they saying that bald people cannot be pleasant and easy-going. Either cast an actor with hair or don’t. It’s baldist! Come on Woody – you SHOULD know better.
8. WHAT HAPPENED TO TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT?
So I was watching a very disappointing blockbuster film about a massive lizard and I was so disconnected with the lack of characterisation or suspense I got distracted by the usually brilliant Bryan Cranston and his appalling wig! Why not allow let the character have a natural hairstyle of the actor? Are they saying a character with a receding hairline or a bald character is less sympathetic? All that money spent on special effects and incredible looking giant monsters in Godzilla (2014) and his hair-piece was so unconvincing I was embarrassed. Mind you not as unconvincing as the script.
7. KING OF THE WIGS – NICOLAS CAGE
I can’t stand wigs and plastic surgery and Cage seems to have had his fair share of both. It’s vanity gone mad. Unless of course you have a tragic disfigurement or burns I see no reason to alter your body or face in ANY way via artificial means! If you need to lose weight go on a diet don’t use liposuction. If you are bald don’t get a rat transplant on your bonce just deal with it. The worst hair-cut he ever had was arguably in the terrific prison-escape blockbuster Con Air (1997). While the mullet had a certain magnetic quality it, in my opinion, it was laughable and took the piss really.
Anyway, Cage — on his day — is an outstanding actor but he has been in some really sorry old tosh like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011). Here’s a guy who could be a hero to all baldies everywhere with his receding locks so why not allow his characters have Cage’s natural barnet. His lack of locks worked well in Adaptation (2002) as it added to low-status nature of one of the brothers but this was an exception to the rule. 6. BALD PEOPLE DEHUMANIZED AS THE BAD GUY!
Look all the villains over the years who have been bald: Lex Luthor, Voldemort, Ming The Merciless, John Doe (from Se7en), Bane, Gru, Don Logan, Darth Maul, The Baldies from The Wanderers (1979) and many more. Choosing someone who is follicly-challenged is an easy shorthand and detrimental to the humanization of bald people all over the world. We are not villains. We are humans – just because we don’t have hair it doesn’t make us bad people. We have feelings you know.
5. THE BALD UNTRUTH! – JOHN TRAVOLTA
Why use wigs? Why can’t the character be bald – does it make them any less of a human being?! At the very least why collude in the fact the character has real hair. Try and be inventive with the syrups. John Travolta has worn some horrific fringes in his time but at no stage does he send this part of his being up or make it part of the characterisation. In Wild Hogs (2007) — a film about mid-life crises he spends most of it in a bandana rather than embracing his lack of hair. Fair play in the dreadful From Paris With Love (2010) he is bald but he still has a compensatory goatee to take the bald sheen away from the role.
4. UNINTENTIONAL HUMOUR
I’m just going to say one word: Surrogates (2009). This Bruce Willis sci-fi thriller is a dog of a film and the syrups are hilarious. Humans are essentially lock-ins and rarely go out. Instead they live their lives through virtual reality surrogates. It’s not a bad idea and contains a reasonable social comment on technology displacing actual physical and emotional contact. The problem I have with the film is the human version of Willis is bald whereas the computer version has hair. So basically, Willis’ preferred setting is having hair. Why couldn’t it be the other way round!! Plus the haircut is an absolute joke; much like the film as a whole. Bruce Willis is a flag-bearing hero to all bald men and he has worn some dodgy wigs in his time but this is the most monstrous blot on his career.
3. BAD HAIRPIECES DEVALUE THE PRODUCTION
Films are SO expensive to make you would think they could spend a bit more of an effort to make the hairpieces more realistic. Some films — even historical dramas like Lincoln (2013) — have incredible sets, amazing actors and a cast of thousands but when it comes to the syrups the whole thing falls down. I found Lincoln a tough watch anyway as it was SO boring. Has anyone actually watched this film and enjoyed it? Anyway, despite a ponderous story the incredible production is let down by wigs so ridiculous they act as a Brechtian distanciation device and consistently remind us we are watching a movie. I realise that movie God Spielberg may have been going for authenticity but it backfires in Lincoln and the wigs are an embarrassment.
2. IF THEY HAVE HAIR – WHY ARE THEY WEARING A SYRUP?
The worst thing is when the actor actually has hair and they STILL put a hair-piece on them. It’s a travesty really because they could have cast a bald person in the role and given them a leg up in the vanity-led industry that is Hollywood. Or at the very least use the actors real hair and style it accordingly. If the film covers a number of years then for additional realism they should shoot the film in order as the hair grows. The biggest culprit for this is Oliver Stone. He has made some magnificent films but his career is littered with crimes against bald people. Just have a gander at these monstrosities:
1. HAIL THE BALD HEROES!
We shall fight them in the barbers, the make-up chairs and film & sets. Hail the heroes carrying the fight against the vain, unreal and plastic harbingers of doom! Stand proud the hairless and bald! Fight the good fight to the last strand!
The Cinema Fix presents 