Writer: Tracy Letts, adapted from his own play.
Starring: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr., and Lynn Collins
About a decade ago, I made the ill-fated decision to see William Friedkin's Bug in the theater, no doubt spurned on by the trailer painting it as a graphic piece of body horror. All I remember is my intense disappointment upon exiting the multiplex, and the feeling that I had been cheated out of my hard-earned money. And yet, over the intervening years, it still held some sort of sway over me, because as much as I didn't like it, I just couldn't completely forget it; ever since that fateful day it has somehow intermittently crept into my mind, randomly, at various points throughout life. I didn't remember a lot of it, per se, but something about it was interesting enough that I just had to see it again.
Based on a play by Tracy Letts (who also adapted the screenplay), Bug is directly in contrast with 98% of the films released to multiplexes every year, in that it's the posterchild for minimalism: taking its cues from its theatrical origin, there are seven characters in the whole movie, and only two settings. This means most of its meager $4 million budget no doubt went toward salaries for its pretty big-name cast, and in this case, it's completely well deserved. But we'll get back to this a little bit later.
The plot also follows suit with everything else, by being as simple as possible: Ashley Judd is Agnes (or “Aggie” for short, a nickname that is somehow adorable), a woman who lives in a rundown motel in an unspecified state. She has been alone for some time, seeing that her ex, Jerry Goss (Harry Connick Jr.), has been away in prison for the last two years; he has just been released.
This causes her ample stress. She works at a local lesbian bar with R.C. (the beautiful Lynn Collins), and to give her a little bit of company, in the hopes that it might cut back on her stress levels, R.C. introduces Agnes to Peter (Michael Shannon), a man whom she had just met earlier in the night, but who she thinks would be a perfect match for Agnes. The three of them head back to Aggie's motel for some fun (in the form of drugs and alochol), but R.C. gets an urgent call and has to jet, conveniently leaving Agnes and Peter alone together. Nothing occurs between them that night, but Jerry comes to visit Agnes in the morning, when Peter is nowhere to be found. Jerry plans on picking up his relationship with Agnes right from where it left off, but she has other plans, and orders him to leave.
Their relationship did not go well, you see, with Jerry jealous that Agnes was smitten with Lloyd, a man that ran around the same bad circles as Agnes and her friends; she was secretly planning to run away with Lloyd. Whether or not Jerry knew these specific details, he could tell from the way they looked at each other that something was amiss, and ratted on Lloyd after he was busted, to prevent Aggie from getting together with him while he was behind bars. And so that is how she spends her meaningless existence, doing drugs from behind the doors of a sleazy motel and wondering what could have been.
Anyway, Peter was just grabbing some food, and soon after the two of them engage in some passionate lovemaking. Agnes believes she may have found a companion, someone who can help her move on from her abusive past, while Peter found the perfect subject for his anti-government ramblings. You see, he was a guinea pig for the U.S. Government, who implanted him with live bugs in one of many disturbing tests he was forced to participate in; he broke out and is now on the run from the very same officials who will keep their secret at any cost.
Or could it just be that he's mentally unstable and all of those things are only happening inside his head? To its discredit, the film makes no ambiguities out of its situation, and lets the viewer in on the answer from the very beginning, removing any reasons its audience would need to follow closely. It just travels from point A to its "logical" (for the circumstances) conclusion, though so little happens until the end that it feels twice as long as it actually is...I almost fell asleep the first time I watched it, and found myself threatening to doze off this time, even as I was acutely aware in advance of how slow the story was and what would happen.
In the end, this can be seen as a character study of loneliness, an example of how desperate minds are more susceptible to control than others. We see it everyday in stories of elderly people who fall for phone or internet scams (while some of these may be a case of senility, many of these victims also live alone, and are driven by their desire to connect with anyone that they can). Agnes is openly lonely, and is the perfect vessel for Peter to spread his crazy beliefs and theories; anyone else would have cast his ramblings aside as nonsense, but Aggie so desperately craves to be with someone that isn't Voss, that she is willing to go along with everything until she crosses the point of no return.
As the years go on, it can also be seen as an apt metaphor for spreading misinformation in a digital age: no matter what weird ideas and theories people put online, there will always be people so desperate to connect that they will believe anything. Especially on places like social media, where users can network with one another and are more apt to believe things that come from the “mouths” of their friends. As the lines between corporate “journalism” and alternative “journalism” continue to blur, both of which have their own set of principles and endgames (with “the truth” nowhere to be found in either of them), so too do the lines between “fact” and “fiction”. Will the U.S. be full of Peters in future generations, when corporate-owned media control 100% of the media, rather than the 90% it owns now? It's a rather disturbing thought, but the direction we're certainly headed, with money the sole driving force behind everything, and American civilians merely the collateral damage.
In form and substance, this movie is a bust for William Friedkin, but he proves himself an actor's director, by extracting genuinely brilliant performances from his actors. Just the fact they say some of their lines without cracking up is enough to earn everyone some kudos, but that this idea gains any leverage at all is a testament to Judd, Shannon (who, as I have just learned, reprises his role from the stage version), and Connick Jr., who approach the material with a steadfast seriousness and commitment that many others would have shrugged off. Seriously, watch Ashley Judd excitedly declare, “I am the Super Queen Mother Bug!”--one of the worst lines ever delivered in any movie--not once, but twice, and marvel at how Friedkin somehow managed to convince an A-list star to say it as convincingly as she possibly could. The other actors follow suit, giving it their all in every frame, and it is this, more than anything else, that keeps the film far more interesting—and for far longer—than it should be.
I can't recommend Bug to anyone, because its shortcomings far outweigh its positives. But part of me does admire it for its minimalist approach, and dedication to the material, no matter how ignorant or ill-conceived it is. And that has to be saying something. Right?
RATING: 5/10
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