Admittedly, I tend to enter a Yorgos Lanthimos film with a fair amount of caution. The tireless Greek filmmaker has gained a high standing among many critics and awards voters, releasing three features in three years, all to widespread acclaim. The first was “Poor Things”, an amalgamation of Lanthimos’s worst tendencies ramped up to 100. Last year we got the equally bad but even more forgettable “Kinds of Kindness”. Now this year it’s “Bugonia”,

Lanthimos brings back Emma Stone for their fourth consecutive collaboration. As Lanthimos’s muse, Stone takes the brunt of his vision, working within the punishing boundaries of the director’s harsh worldview. But unlike the exploitative carnality of something like “Poor Things”, Lanthimos only asks her to shave her head for “Bugonia” – a peculiar demand that only serves one reoccurring joke. But “Bugonia” gives us a lot more to talk about than peculiar hair choices.

As with every Lanthimos movie, you go into them expecting a bonkers story featuring off-kilter characters who at some point run the risk of mentally imploding to one degree or another. This is certainly true of “Bugonia”, a wacky adaptation of the 2003 South Korean genre mashup “Save the Green Planet!” from director Jang Joon-hwan. It’s penned by Will Tracy who also co-wrote 2022’s exceptional “The Menu”. And joining Stone is the film’s true star, Jesse Plemons along with Aidan Delbis, a terrific young actor on the autism spectrum. All three deliver in spades.

To be clear, “Bugonia” is bleak, cynical, and even nihilistic in its merciless critique of humankind. It’s a movie void of hope and with a grim outlook that fully manifests itself through gruesome and gory violence. Yet incredibly it’s simultaneously an absurdist comedy with pitch-black humor that surfaces throughout the movie. Somehow Lanthimos finds the balance between the two, and all while touching on such serious themes as alienation, dehumanization, societal collapse, and corporate duplicity.

Plemons plays Teddy Gatz a bee enthusiast and rabid conspiracy theorist who lives in his family’s old farmhouse with his neurodivergent cousin and only friend Don (Delbis). When not tending to his handful of bee houses, Teddy is filling Don’s head with a wild array of political, medical, biological, and social conspiracies. His biggest crackpot theory is that an alien race known as the Andromedans have infiltrated humanity, camouflaging themselves as people in power in an effort to take over Earth.

Elsewhere Michelle Fuller (Stone), the powerful CEO of the pharmaceutical company Auxolith, is going through the motions of polishing up her company’s public image. Amid shooting disingenuous HR videos about diversity and inclusion, she’s also deceitfully touting a new culture at Auxolith where the needs and wellbeing of workers is a new priority. But her facade of ‘benevolence’ shows cracks with such edicts as “Feel free to leave early,” followed with the qualifier, “Unless you have things to do.”

Teddy is convinced Michelle is an embedded Andromedan who is preparing things for the alien invasion. So he manipulates Don into helping him kidnap Michelle with plans of using her to negotiate a full retreat with the Andromedan Emperor. After snatching her, Teddy and Don sedate Michelle before taking her to the basement of their farmhouse. There they shave off her hair to keep her from communicating with her mothership and lube her down with antihistamine cream to keep her from being tracked. From there they must wait four days until the lunar eclipse which is when her mothership can arrive undetected.

It’s all so utterly absurd which Michelle is quick to explain to her captors. But Teddy is resolute in his warped convictions and pitiless in his responses to Michelle’s resistance. Interestingly though, while his life is marked by self-ruin, Teddy’s madness is rooted in tragedy which comes more into focus as Lanthimos steers him forward. It’s not enough to excuse his cruel and/or maniacal actions. But it gives meaning to his personal agenda while shaping Teddy into something more than an aimless head case.

As for Michelle, she’s no angel herself. The movie certainly urges us to root for her in her efforts to escape. But while it’s true she is a victim, Lanthimos frequently reminds us that Michelle is crafty and cutthroat to the bone. Her shady corporate savvy makes her a formidable opponent for Teddy, leading to a fascinating face-off between two iron wills. She’s just as ruthless with Don, aggressively manipulating him by shrewdly using her humanity as a weapon.

Things escalate quickly in the final 30 minutes as the violence ratchets up and the suspense builds to a boil. It leads to a gonzo ending that is utterly preposterous yet hits like a ton of bricks. It’s an emotional exclamation point that emphasizes the movie’s most urgent theme. There are some noticeable holes that are left unfilled which isn’t unusual for a Lanthimos film. But it’s still an issue that shortchanges both the audience and the story. Yet “Bugonia” overcomes its issues in ways most other Lanthimos movies have not, making it the director’s most satisfying effort to date.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Colin Farrell brings every bit of his charisma and charm to his latest film, “Ballad of a Small Player”, a perplexing psychological drama that has so much going for it starting with it’s fully committed star. It’s directed by Edward Berger who is coming off of back-to-back Best Picture Oscar nominations for “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Conclave”. Those two names alone should be enough to pique any movie lover’s interest.

But Farrell’s wholehearted efforts and Berger’s sumptuous visual artistry can’t overcome the movie’s single biggest hurdle – its script. Adapting the 2014 Lawrence Osborne novel of the same name, screenwriter Rowan Joffé takes on the daunting challenge of untangling the already knotty original material. The film gets off to a good start, nicely setting the table both narratively and visually. But problems spring up alarmingly fast as the movie swings from stylishly intriguing to frustratingly convoluted.

Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a high-rolling gambling addict who has made his way to Macau, “the gambling capital of the universe”. We learn rather quickly that Doyle is in trouble. For starters, he fled to Macau after swindling over $900,000 from a wealthy elderly widow. But he gambled it all away in a run of bad luck. To complicate matters, he has ran up a debt of 352,000 Hong Kong dollars with a swanky Macau hotel and they’ve given him three days to pay up or they’re calling the police.

Doyle’s flawed addict’s logic tells him statistical probability is on his side and he’ll start winning soon. He’s convinced that he played his way into this mess and he can play his way out, with the right financial backing of course. But he’s having a difficult time finding a casino that will extend him credit. He finds hope in the enigmatic Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a casino hostess and loan shack who is in a pickle of her own. Doyle tries to persuade her to fund him, insisting that one big win would solve both of their problems.

As if that wasn’t enough, hot on Doyle’s heels is Cynthia Blythe (Tilda Swinton), a pesky private investigator who gives him 24 hours to come up with the widow’s money or she’ll have him deported back to London. Cynthia adds an interesting layer, but the story is more about Doyle’s mysterious relationship with Dao Ming who disappears, suddenly reappears, and then disappears again. Her presence and absence both play crucial roles in understanding Doyle’s arc. But the hazy storytelling makes getting to any deeper meaning a chore.

At its core, “Ballad of a Small Player” is a redemption story that offers an unorthodox representation of addiction. It boldly serves us its story with helpings of existentialism and tragedy. And its near purgatorial perspective keeps us questioning what we’re seeing. But all of those big ambitious lead to trappings that the movie can’t escape. Even worse, the lack of clarity leaves things murky to point that deciphering it all can be a headache.

“Ballad of a Small Player” is one of the most visually striking movies of the year. It’s also one of the year’s bigger disappointments. The movie is a visual feast, brimming with neon-bathed imagery and richly detailed compositions. And it’s anchored by a tremendous lead performance from Colin Farrell who deserved more fully realized material than he was given. But even with his eye-popping presentation, Berger can’t wrangle together the wealth of big ideas he clearly has. For that reason, his latest film falls well short of his previous two award winners.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS