Some quick gushing about Bugonia

Two stony women in Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film Bugonia . (Emma + Alicia Silver) Stone.

Hadn't been to a hall to watch a film in a few weeks, and this was well worth it. I loved Bugonia (as with everything by Lanthimos, you have to be prepared for some madness). It's eerie and claustrophobic - with many tight closeups, especially in the first half - but often very funny too, in that cold detached way. With some good bee scenes, and a great humming soundtrack to go with them.

And the last five minutes... among the loveliest closing sequences I have seen. (Though you might need to be a certified misanthrope to agree with this assessment.) That ending also incongruously uses a breezy song (“Where Have all the Flowers Gone”, the Marlene Dietrich version), much like Dr Strangelove did with “We’ll Meet Again”.

Overall: this film persuasively makes the point that anyone who thinks Earth, our pale blue dot, can be saved must be mentally ill. Lanthimos’s sensibility, and his coolly misanthropic tone, continues to work very well for me at most times (though Bugonia is almost a sentimental film by his standards - Jesse Plemons's performance is very effective in that regard).

P.S. I wrote a bit about Poor Things in this 2023-Oscars piece, and need to watch Kinds of Kindness, which I had forgotten about.