Emma Stone's Bugonia Transfixes Venice, Draws Lengthy Standing Ovation

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone ‘s doom-laden black comedy-thriller Bugonia stupefied and delighted the Venice Film Festival on Thursday night, drawing a rousing six-minute standing ovation after its world premiere inside the Italian water city’s Sala Grande cinema. From their perch on the theater’s balcony, Lanthimos, Stone and co-stars Jessie Plemons and Aidan Delbis joined hands and bowed to the crowd in unison as the lengthy applause wound down. Throughout the film’s two-hour runtime, the Venice premiere crowd alternated between stunned silence and bouts of laughter in reaction to the story’s “explosive violence, bursts of slapstick physical comedy and satirical jabs,” as The Hollywood Reporter’s chief critic summed up the film’s “weird twists” in a rave review .

Yorgos Lan