'Bugonia' may or may not be about aliens; it's definitely about alienation

As the end credits began to scroll at my screening of Bugonia , the audience sat silently in the darkness for several long seconds.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos' latest film follows Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a grimy, raw-boned conspiracy theorist who, alongside his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), kidnaps Michelle (Emma Stone) a steely Big Pharma CEO, because he's convinced himself she's an alien.

It's not uncommon for a movie to lull a theater full of people into a moment of collective contemplation, of course. Such silences take various forms, depending on the film that precedes them: stunned, or thoughtful, or weighted with emotion. But Bugonia is a Lanthimos film. Which explains why, at its conclusion, the audience decided to take a moment to sit with it, before a lone voice pierced the gloo