Emma Stone stars as a powerful CEO who is accused of being an alien and kidnapped in the trailer for Bugonia, which marks her latest collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos.
Focus Features on Thursday released the official trailer, which was pegged to the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival on the same day. The science-fiction black comedy follows two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap high-powered CEO Michelle Fuller (Stone) after they become convinced she is an alien who intends to destroy Earth. In addition to Stone, Bugonia stars Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias and Alicia Silverstone and will be released Oct. 24.
The trailer begins with Michelle entering a building as snapshots cut to several magazines she posed for the cover of. “I believe every company should strive to form a diverse table,” she says in a voice-over as Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” plays in the background. “To empower people of different skills …”
Michelle’s cool demeanor quickly disappears when it’s revealed that she’s reading off of a script to film a video for her company.
The trailer then cuts to show conspiracy theorists Teddy (Plemons) and Don (Delbis) plotting their plan to kidnap Michelle. “They want you to think it’s you, that it’s you who made this world,” Teddy says in a voice-over as he’s shown working on an assembly line. “But it’s always been them.”
“All we’ve lost … All that’s been done to us … We’re setting that right again,” Teddy continues in his voiceover as he and Don kidnap Michelle outside of her home.
Michelle eventually wakes up with a shaved head as Teddy explains that she’s at the “headquarters of the human resistance.” After she asks what happened to her hair, Teddy explains, “Your hair has been destroyed. To prevent you from contacting your ship.”
“In the next 48 hours, the police and the FBI will begin a statewide manhunt. I’m a high-profile female corporate executive. I am crucial. In all humility, I can say that,” she explains to her kidnappers. “Think of it like you abducted the governor, but worse. There is no possible scenario where you benefit from this incident.”
Despite her warning, Teddy decides to stick with his plan because he believes that she’s “killing our planet” and is “alien filth.”
The trailer concludes with Teddy declaring at a dinner table that he knows who Michelle is. “I know you, too, Teddy,” she responds, which prompts him to jump onto the table and attack her.
In his review, The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic, David Rooney, writes that the film is “far from subtle and often a bit silly.” However, Lanthimos manages to “serve up something weird and subversive.”
Rooney also praises the acting in Bugonia. “Stone and Plemons are both in top form, clearly vibing with the director’s idiosyncratic sensibility and upping each other’s game,” he writes. “And newcomer Delbis is a sad-sack delight, a sweet-natured naïf caught in Teddy and Michelle’s ferocious battle of wits.”
