Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia”.
(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus feature)
Jesse Plemons is never one to chew landscapes. Even when a role was given that madness takes into account, it is not in a big way. Instead, it deepens, building silence from the inside out. And in the science fiction thriller without category of Lanthimos Yorgos, Plemons, meeting with the director after interpreting three characters in “types of goodness” last year, offers one of his most riveted performances so far. While Teddy, a beekeeper and lonely convinced that a pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone) is an alien of the planet Andromeda, Plemons channels paranoia, pain and justice in something absurd and restlessly sincere. The archetype of “I do my own research” could easily deviate in the territory of “SNL”, but play it heartbreaking, creating a chilling portrait of a man lost in an algorithmic labyrinth of internet rabbit holes and desperate for clarity in a world that no longer makes sense. Teddy recruits his younger cousin Don (Aidan Delbis, an autistic actor for the first time in a fascinating turn) to help him kidnap the Stone executive, attract him to the mission in a wrong effort to protect him. Even when things become chaos, Plemons (a 2022 support actor, nominated for the Oscar de Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog” by Jane Campion) influences performance in a defective but recognizable emotional logic. The result captures the anxious conspirator spirit of 2025 with mysterious precision, which demonstrates once again that Plemons does not need to raise his voice to offer an action that says a lot. – Josh Rottenberg
