Whoaaa -- this is creepy. Bug is a psychological thriller that reflects the current American state of paranoia. The film, directed by William Friedkin, is based on the stageplay by Tracy Letts; Letts wrote the screenplay.
All claustrophobic atmosphere and endless tension, Bug stars Ashley Judd as Agnes, a waitress leading a solitary sort of life. She rooms in an isolated roadside motel somewhere appalling in Oklahoma, and spends her time either working or getting high. The silence in which Agnes lives is broken by the hang-up phone calls she gets late at night. The calls suggest that her abusive ex is now out of jail. There are hints of a lost child in her past. By the time you see Agnes use her teeth to get the top off a bottle of wine, you can wager that most of what follows won't be pretty.
Into Agnes' life comes Peter, a drifter with some problems of his own. Peter (Michael Shannon) is awkward and nervous and convinced that the army has been experimenting on him since he served in the Gulf War. It doesn't take him very long to convince Agnes that they have both been infected with a form of insect life that lives in the human blood stream. Of particular interest in all this are Peter's various paranoid versions of U.S. history.
Agnes' ex-husband turns up long enough to menace her; Harry Connick Jr. is frighteningly good in the role of good-natured, forgiving batterer.
Bug is all about the performances, which are raw and startling. Michael Shannon (who played Peter on stage) has an intensity that is riveting -- although often difficult to watch -- and Ashley Judd is likewise heartbreaking and convincing. It's not every love story that has the leads descend into paranoid delusions, now that we think about it.
Bug unfolds almost completely in Agnes' motel room, adding to the claustrophobia but also reminding a viewer of the story's stage roots. The experience is more like watching a play than a movie.
Director Friedkin (The Exorcist) proved some time ago that he knows how to scare people and he does some dark-recesses-of-the-mind stuff with ordinary domestic sounds here.
Bug is quite funny, if your idea of humour runs to the black side, and it's often frightening, but the problem is, it doesn't keep you guessing.
It doesn't even start you guessing, actually. There's never a moment when Peter's conspiracy theories make you wonder.
The movie just puts its big ol' metaphor in your face and hope the actors can drag you along with them.
Almost works, too, but in the last 20 minutes, Bug goes right off the rails. Pity.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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