FILM

Bugonia ★★★

(MA 15+) 118 minutes

Yorgos Lanthimos must be the most frustrating filmmaker working today.

Craziness is his stock-in-trade. Whether it works for him depends on whether he’s employing quantity control.

In his collaborations with Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara – The Favourite and Poor Things – the madness was moderated by the pointedness of the films’ visual and verbal wit. Each worked in synch with the other to lend form and create satire.

The director’s latest film, Bugonia , gives us Lanthimos Unleashed. The craziness is unrestrained, the mood swings are extreme and the conclusion is an elaborate – and admittedly hilarious – practical joke making nonsense of the whole thing.

Perhaps Lanthimos’ greatest gift is his ability to persuade talented actors

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