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Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”
(Atsushi nishijima / Focus Features)
Jesse Plemons is never one to chew the scenery. Even when given a role that verges on the insane, he doesn’t go big. Instead, he goes deep, quietly building tension from within. And in Yorgos Lanthimos’s unclassy, darkly comic sci-fi thriller, Plemons—reuniting with the director after playing three characters in last year’s “Kind of Kindness”—delivers one of his most riveting performances yet. As Teddy, a brooding, reclusive beekeeper convinced that a pharma executive (Emma Stone) is an alien from the planet Andromeda, Plemons channels paranoia, grief, and righteousness into something both absurd and unflinchingly heartfelt. The “I did my own research” archetype could easily veer into “SNL” sketch territory, but he plays it heartbreakingly straight, creating a chillingly familiar man lost in the algorithmic maze of the internet rabbit hole and desperate for clarity in a world that no longer makes sense. Teddy enlists his younger cousin Don (Aidan Delbis, a first-time autistic actor in a captivating turn) to help him kidnap Stone’s tough-guy CEO, drawing him into the mission in a misguided effort to protect him. Even as things spiral into chaos, Plemons (a 2022 supporting actor Oscar nominee for Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”) grounds the show in the emotional logic of a man who is warped but recognizable. The result captures the restless, conspiratorial spirit of 2025 with eerie precision, proving once again that Plemons doesn’t need to raise his voice to deliver a performance that speaks volumes. — Josh Rottenberg
