Movie Review: Bug

Do you ever get the feeling that you are the only person in the theater that is enjoying what is on the screen? That was how I felt watching Bug. I was drawn into this twisted tale of two fractured people who feed each others paranoia fueled delusions in an endless feedback loop of fear and love. While I was becoming involved in what was happening between them, there were people snickering, and oft times outright laughing. Now, don't get me wrong, I can actually see where they are coming from. Bug is the kind of movie that almost requires you to buy in, completely giving yourself over to the film, much like The Blair Witch Project, this movie is not a passive experience, if you sit there and watch it you will likely be disappointed, but the moment you allow yourself to become invested, it is like flipping a switch and it becomes one freaky thrill ride.

We meet Agnes (Ashley Judd), she works at a lesbian bar and lives out of a motel. She is a woman who lives in fear and is highly skeptical of anyone that she meets, preferring to be in a more controlled environment which only includes her friend, RC (Lynn Collins). She has a violent ex-husband (Harry Connick Jr.) who has just gotten out on parole and comes home, uninvited and unwanted. Meanwhile, RC brings over a stray guy from the bar, he has this sad look about him, a look that the audience will recognize to be filled with menace. The normally trepidatious Agnes welcomes him in and invites him to stay. The man is named Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), and in Agnes he has found a kindred spirit. They are both living somewhat on the fringe, both with a lifetime of baggage, baggage that connects them on a deeper level than that of recent acquaintances, or even merely friends.

As the friendship grows by leaps abod bounds in the span of a very short period of time, Peter confides the secrets of his past. He poors out these paranoid delusions of being experimented on by the government and how he is being attack by bugs that live beneath his skin. Before you know it, Agnes has been reeled in by his paranoid charms, the two are set on a course of self destruction from which it may not be possible to escape.

Bug is based on a stage play by Tracy Letts, who also wrote the screenplay. It is a lean, tension filled work that keeps its setting limited, almost entirely set inside the motel room. It builds its tension slowly, awkward conversation between the two damaged leads builds to their frantic panic filled monologues of paraoid conspiracy theories that make little real sense to us, but are frightening nonetheless, but to the two of them, it is perfectly sound logic. The screenplay really builds from the moment the two meet to the frenzied madness where they end up. Every step taken is borne organically out of their conversations, Peter's ever increasing bug talk to Agnes eating it up.

The lead performances are simply incredible. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon completely sell their roles, with Shannon reprising the role he filled in the stage play. I was completely involved with Agnes and Peter, Ashley and Michael no longer existed. They threw themselves into their roles with reckless abandon. They believed in the characters they were portraying and the emotions that play out are genuine, and they are very scary. The build from those awkward first moments where they are feeling each other out, to the frenzied shriek of their monologues. Harry Connick Jr. is pretty good as well, at first he seems like a slimy, violent guy that you don't want around the sweet and simple Agnes, and under most circumstances you would be right, but you can see him change in his limited screentime, becoming more and more concerned with what is happening inside that room, and this becoming an integral part of Peter's rantings.

Bug was directed by William Friedkin, who took us to the edge of sanity with one of the scariest films ever made, The Exorcist, back in 1973. This is his first film since 2003's The Hunted, and first horror/thriller since The Guardian seventeen years ago. This film is much more limited and focused than many on his resume, limited to just a handful of characters and one set for the majority of its runtime. Watching it, I couldn't help but think that this was Friedkin by way of David Cronenberg, kind of like how Match Point was Woody Allen by way of Alfred Hitchcock.

Bottomline. However you want to look at it, Bug is one seriously twisted film, one that digs itself into your flesh and feeds on your blood. I left this one with that distinct feeling of crawling skin. Judd and Shannon are absolutely mesmerizing as their affair spirals out of control in a self-destructive tail spin from which their is no escape.

Highly Recommended.