Bug

By Duane Byrge
May 20, 2006

CANNES -- William Friedkin cranks up the aesthetic meds in "Bug," a garden-variety variant of the psycho-solider genre which should snare first-weekend horror fans as surely as a No-Pest strip. Lionsgate, with another one-word title, will be challenged to lure mainstream viewers with a title mug like "Bug."

A genre film torched with psychological accelerants, "Bug" is narratively compacted into a single motel room, a cinematic space akin to the cramp of a Santa Monica Boulevard no-Equity theater. As such, there are no chases through Brooklyn under the train or spinning heads, but Friedkin swirls the formulaic story to its most intense inner dimension. With his vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.

The slug on "Bug": Mysterious Western stranger saddles up with vulnerable pretty lady in out-of-way motel, and together they must fend off the black hats. In this cracked case, Agnes (Ashley Judd) cocktails at a shitkickers' bar, pines away in a seedy motel room and gets crank phone calls, she thinks, from her wacko ex-boyfriend (Harry Connick Jr.) , who has been just sprung from the pen.

In steps the Mysterious Stranger, a stray named Peter (Michael Shannon) picked up by Agnes' co-worker roustabout (Lynn Collins). Peter is a bit stiff with the womenfolk, but in a physical manner that sexually repressed Agnes readily appreciates. After one night of less-than-tender bliss, Agnes wants him to stay. A protective male, Peter spots a tiny bug in her bed and immediately goes into full-stage bug alert. He convinces her that they have a "bug problem," one far beyond the common insect nuisance. These bugs are part of a diabolical Army experiment gone awry, he tells her: His blood has been infected with larvae in a V.A. hospital run by Nazi imports. Soon, Peter has the place encrusted in tin foil. Weirder, he begins to mutilate himself, trying to purge his poisons. After that, "Bug" gets grosser and grosser.

Admittedly, when synopsized, "Bug" sounds like high camp, but it is smartly and convincingly fleshed out, at least enough to fit inside and burst the seams of generic dimension. Screenwriter Tracy Letts has spun a psychologically taut thriller based around the co-dependent needs and neuroses/psychoses of the lead characters.

With her low self-esteem and loneliness, Agnes is rife for a savior, and Peter's messianic mania injects her with a huge boost of self worth. Judd's ripe performance, coming out of her cocoon into a blaze of rhapsodic psychosis, is this entertainment's most stirring element. As Agnes, she quite convincingly descends into megalomaniac delusion, swelling into, err, an Agnes of Bug state of disgrace.

In his role as the wounded vet, Shannon recalls a young Tim Robbins in his wacko roles, as he whirls and catapults into a deadly state of delirium. As the lout ex-boyfriend, Connick is an apt pretty-boy knucklehead, while Collins brings out the intelligence of her honky-tonk lesbian character.

Under Friedkin's savvy directorial hand, technical contributions are well-realized, though the opening-scene bursts of helicopter blades too sharply clue us to the disabled-vet scenario to follow. Throughout, "Bug" is braced by cinematographer Michael Grady's charged camera movements and visceral compositions. It's also smartly buzzed by the music: Composer Brian Tyler's appropriately weird score and musical supervisor Jay Faires' smartly odd selections help orchestrate our emotions.