The film collaborations between director Yorgos Lanthimos and his leading lady, Emma Stone, over the last decade have been both acclaimed and popular.  I can’t say that I have really liked any of them, The Favourite probably being my favorite.  Lanthimos is a fastidious artist with a strange, perhaps cruel idea of what is funny in our modern age.  Just watch The Lobster to get an idea of his odd sensibilities; I rather like that one.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ film creates a closed loop of a story here: a corporate executive (Emma Stone) is kidnapped by two men (Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis) who accuse her of being an Andromedan alien bent on destroying the Earth.  No evidence supports their accusations, but the woman plays along, trying to buy time and delay her execution.  Her reasoning causes one of the men to change his mind, but the other is relentless in his obsession.  How will she survive?

This is one of those stories that stacks things for the audience in one overwhelming direction . . . until the final act, when a turnabout is revealed.  It has to be this way for the script to work, but it is unconvincing and unsatisfying.  The script places these two ordinary guys in the extraordinary position of being able to control the fate of this woman, which I think is the irony that the director so loves to promote.  Whatever they decide will have far-reaching consequences — and yet they should be the last people to wield such control and power.  But what if they’re right?

What ultimately turns me off about this movie is that it tries so hard to have things both ways.  We are convinced that the men are on to a huge conspiracy.  Then we are convinced that they are nutcases, and dangerous not only to the woman but others as well.  Then doubt enters and things about their pasts are revealed that make us question things all over again.  Now, to be fair, if I was directing I would probably make the same decisions and choices that Lanthimos makes.  But that doesn’t make this a story that ought to be told at all; the only reason it exists is for the last five minutes or so, which I shall not describe.  Suffice it to say that this is a movie that I would have passed if offered the chance to make.  And is it Oscar quality?  I scoff.  ☆ ☆.  19 May 2026.