PHOTO BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA / FOCUS FEATURES

In cinema, 2025 may be remembered as the year prestige filmmakers tried to grapple with the fractured social realities of the 21st century.

Some have done so quite well; Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” feels both thematically and emotionally of the moment. In other cases, an attempt to say too much leads to no great statement at all; Ari Aster’s “Eddington” is a prime example.

Perhaps it is illustrative, then, that Aster is a producer on “Bugonia,” a heavy-handed and inconsistent parable. The film is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who dazzled with “Poor Things,” and loosely adapted from the Korean film “Save the Green Planet” by screenwriter Will Tracy — who, by the way, was a producer on “Eddington.”

The film concerns a troubled wannabe savior, Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons), who has lost himself in a conspiratorial rabbit hole. He believes Earth has been enslaved by an advanced alien race from the Andromeda galaxy; he has created a reluctant convert of his cousin (Aidan Delbis) and has hatched a plan to free Earth from its bondage.

He kidnaps Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company; a botched experimental treatment from Fuller’s group has rendered Gatz’ mother (Alicia Silverstone) permanently comatose, an event Gatz readily admits caused him to careen between ideologies from Marxism to alt-right agitation. The more the captive Fuller prods at Gatz’ true motivations, the more violent he becomes; meanwhile, the authorities do not appear all that close to rescuing the captive bigwig.

Most of “Bugonia” is a sad lesson about the inability of modern society to cope with trauma. Gatz and his mother are let down by the healthcare industry; Fuller is in turn abandoned by the authorities she assumes are about to swoop in and free her. This plotline is compelling; it’s cold, as are some of Lanthimos’ other films, but occasionally effective. The film is undone, however, because the tension between captor and captive never quite escalates — we know that bad things are coming, but Lanthimos is unable to or uninterested in suspense — and the skilled performers are left in scenes that feel more like acting exercises than a natural story.

It culminates in an ending that feels less like coherent commentary and more like a twist for the sake of surprise and visual flair. Commenting on current events in fiction is never easy, and it’s particularly difficult in an inherently muddled age; that does not mean, however, that attempts to do so should end with a shrug rather than a bang.

My Rating: 5/10

“Bugonia” is now playing in theaters.