Bug, directed by William Friedkin, USA, 2007. Review by Julian on 2/16/08.
Being a Hollywood marketer can’t be fun. You’ve got to make people believe that Martin Lawrence is witty; that Brokeback Mountain isn’t quite as gay as it looks; that the latest Veggietales adventure, despite all appearances, might actually be fun for the whole family. You’ve got to play up the romantic aspects of King Kong, and convince some schmuck that Harrison Ford wouldn’t put up with Anne Heche for Six Days, Seven Nights unless there was some gunplay to be had.
And when you’re assigned to work with Bug, an off-beat, claustrophobic stage piece, you might as well call it horror. You might as well toss around the name William Friedkin, the man who helmed genre classic The Exorcist. You might as well play it up as a creature feature, fill the trailer with blood and guts, show some guy spasming as he’s consumed by a swarm of monstrous creepy-crawlies. Of course, you’d be engaging in a feat of gross misrepresentation, but then again, that’s what you’re there for.
I came in to Bug expecting to take a line like “It’s a blood-sucking aphid, and we’re infested,” at face value. Within twenty minutes, however, I realized that the film wasn’t at all what the previews portrayed it to be; instead, I was in store for an intriguing if often over-the-top character study. Tracey Letts, who adapted the film from his play, offers up an exploration of the power of loneliness, and the depths to which a damaged mind will plunge in search of solace.
Agnes White (Ashley Judd), a waitress at a lesbian bar, leads a life of isolation and fear. She shacks up in a crummy motel, hiding from her recently released convict husband (Harry Connick Jr.) and using hard drugs to forget about her missing son. When a fellow waitress introduces her to Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), a strange but equally lonely drifter, the two immediately hit it off. After a night of bonding, Peter lets Agnes in on his little secret: he’s an ex-serviceman who the government decided to infect with mechanical bugs. And now that they’ve spent some quality time together, she’s probably infected too.
The first two acts of Bug unfold in an extremely satisfying fashion, cultivating a sense of entrapment both physical and psychological. No one is ever meant to think for a second that the bugs are real; that’s not a spoiler, despite what the marketing may have led you to believe. No, the intensity of the film springs from the dynamic interplay between two fragile, bizarre characters. While the groundwork for this relationship is laid out quite well on the page, the success of the film owes a great deal to Judd and Shannon.
Judd, whose thick make-up, slight Southern drawl, conflict with abusive males, and perpetual occupation of motel rooms made me think I was watching Charlize Theron in Monster, finally proves once and for all that she’s not just that chick that people occasionally confuse with Charlize Theron. And as for Shannon—well, he’s officially on my short list for actors to check out all the time. I caught him in a couple super-indy performances while working in LA in 2006 and appeciated his appearance in World Trade Center a little while later, but this one definitely adds his name to the “Ben Foster Invitational.” (Yeah, that’s what it’s called). Shannon’s got a weird facial structure and voice to begin with, but when he gets things going, you’ll think they’ve replaced his body with an animatronic doll. That, by the way, is a compliment.
One could give director Friedkin some credit for the quality performances, but after William Peterson’s all-time-worst-acting-in-the-history-of-the-universe turn in To Live and Die in L.A., I’ll just guess that he let the actors do their thing. Behind the camera, however, Friedkin certainly displays his expertise, utilizing tight, controlled movements to deftly navigate a confined space. Beginning with relatively static shots, the camera’s loss of control parallels that of the characters; by the third act, the camera assumes the role of a panicked observer, shaking and barely able to contain the contents of the frame.
Sadly, the third act is also where things fly a bit off the rails. The delicate arc of narrative and characterization suddenly cuts a hard angle, abandoning the build-up in favor of a jagged and disconcerting turn. Things get so weird and ridiculous that they become cool again, but by then the viewer may already be too alienated to care.
And if a viewer believed the marketing and came in expecting some middle of the road horror…well, they probably would have been better off with Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson’s Hairbrush.
Rating: 3.5 screens out of 5
