Cert - 15

Run-time - 1 hour 58 minutes

Director - Yorgos Lanthimos

Cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap a major CEO (Emma Stone) believing that she's an alien intent on destroying the Earth.

I've begun to get into Yorgos Lanthimos films with the same giddy excitement that Star Wars fans may well have gone into the recent sequel trilogy with. Perhaps it's for that reason that despite liking Bugonia I was still somewhat disappointed by it (and I was generally very positive on Kinds Of Kindness).

While a remake of Jang Joon-hwan's 2003 dark comedy Save The Green Planet - originally intended to be directed by the South Korean director - the film is undoubtedly a Lanthimos production.

While narratively one of the director's more accessible outings, stylistically he continues to capture off-kilter worlds and exchanges, all with a dead-pan coating.

Yet, as cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) hold powerful CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) captive in the basement of their isolated home there's likely to be a strong split as to whether you see their interactions as humorous or serious.

The reason for the kidnapping is that the pair believe Fuller to be an alien looking to destroy Earth, and they plan to stop her. As people around me in the screening laughed, sometimes uproariously, at the conspiracy-theory-laden views, led by Teddy, I saw the tone and intention as wholly serious. Especially during a particularly unsettling scene set to a tonally opposing needle-drop.

When humour does strike it's the opposite of grinning and winking at the camera, fitting in with Lanthimos' slightly sideways worlds and the fantastical edges that can construct them - in this case it's uncertain as to whether Stone's character is or isn't an alien, although the film is less concerned with this question and more the cousins' insistence that she is. Will they be found out, "they won't" Teddy assures Don "no one on Earth gives a single f*ck about us."

By focusing on the conspiracy theories at hand, and the CEO being subjected to them, Will Tracy's screenplay might take time to properly kick in, but once things are properly brought together has an interesting exploration of the growing threat rumbling beneath.

One which may well spark earlier on a rewatch, which I should give the film now on the other side of my likely too high expectations going in.

Once things have properly come together there's a more direct nature to things. The narrative feels more confident as Teddy and Don start to lose theirs in the wake of unexpected events and resistance from their victim.

As things ramp up the drive of the film and its themes, and seemingly what Lanthimos wants to explore most, grows. Bringing in that more engaging nature through the darker elements at play.

Elements which you can flip a coin as to whether you see humour in them or not, but manage to eventually land an effect once the narrative is properly established. Making for a solid off-kilter satirical drama, even if slightly disappointing for those expecting another Poor Things from Stone and Lanthimos (to which Bugonia is very different).

Four stars