BUG

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Lionsgate
Grade: B
Directed by: William Friedkin
Written By: Tracy Letts, from his play
Cast: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Lynn Collins, Brian F. Obyrne, Harry Connick Jr.
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 4/23/07
Opens: May 25, 2007

If Agnes (Ashley Judd), the principal character of William Friedkin's new movie, had only said right from
the start to a drifter, Peter (Michael Shannon), who wandered into her life, "Don't bug me," her problems
would not be over. But she'd have wound up in better shape. The director of "The Exorcist" and "The
French Connection" does not come even close to matching his two masterpieces with his latest, actually
a filmed look at a successful off-Broadway play, but this psychological thriller, a genre-bender with
elements of horror, sci-fi, camp, nudity, drug use, sexuality, screaming, earthquakes, stabbing, maiming,
masochism, sadism, paranoia, schizophrenia, immolation, government experimentation, cynicism,
grunge, missing child, alienation, and desperation–all within 101 minutes and all virtually within the
confines of a single room–will probably be the most imaginative indie-distributed movie this year.

Decked out with some mighty emotional monologues from Judd and Shannon, "Bug" takes us to a
desert motel which might serve as the correct answer on an English test to "What is the opposite of
Manhattan's Upper West Side?" Though there's a bar nearby where Agnes and her lesbian lover, RC
(Lynn Collins) serve as waitresses and a well-stocked supermarket nearby, the "Bug" motel is otherwise
in the middle of nowhere, and though Agnes seems to get her lovin' from RC, she is desperately lonely.
And she's frightened, thanks to visits she's going to get accustomed to getting from her violent ex, a
hunky Jerry (Harry Connick Jr.), who has finished serving what he calls "a deuce" for armed robbery and
thinks little of Agnes's order of protection against him. Agnes is pleased, however, to arrange hospitality
for a shy drifter, Peter, who says that he is no longer interested in sex, that he is most appreciative at
being invited to stay overnight on Agnes's couch. On the second night, having been bitten by a small
bug on the bed he now shares with his hostess, he will help her to clear the room of what he thinks is an
infestation. Big mistake.

"Bug" becomes essentially a two-character theater piece which, while stagy, is given cinematic life by
occasional imaginative earthquakes, by the loud rumblings of choppers, presumably government agents
searching for Peter who has allegedly been the victim of dastardly government medical experiments,
and by clever close-ups by cameraman Michael Grady of Peter's body which increasingly shows the
bloody work of hundreds of insects. When Agnes's body becomes covered with blood as well, we
wonder whether Peter is telling the truth as well: that bugs have taken refuge within his torso and have
migrated into that of his hostess, or whether some diabolical masochistic rites are at work.

At least one scene of bodily self-destruction is (for me) unwatchable–that's how gory the film becomes at
least at one point, and that's what makes cinema even more vivid than theater. Even if one sits in the
first row of a small off-Broadway house, one cannot bear witness to blood or become roused by the
reverberations of earthquakes to the extent possible on the screen.

While "Bug" is no "Exorcist," not by long shot, it can be appreciated by those with a taste for gore,
hysterical monologues, and horrific imagination.

Rated R. 101 minutes © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online