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MOVIE REVIEW
Bug
Starring: Ashley Judd, Harry Connick, Jr.
Aggie [Ashley Judd] is a waitress at a lesbian club in Oklahoma. She is all "stay away/ don't mess with me" tough on the outside and vulnerable/ "I'll crack at any moment" on the inside. Ashley Judd plays these types of characters with such an innate ability to give the audience something from a dismal character. Aggie has a lousy ex-husband [Harry Connick, Jr.] who has just gotten released from jail. She lost her son a decade ago.
She bemoans her "miserable existence of laundromats, grocery stores, marriages and lost children."
Bug literally crawls under your skin and takes hold of your mind as you figure out what is it about this film. This dim setting is not likeable or relatable. At first, it just pricks you, then it burrows. It is not likeable or relatable. This woman is so lonely that she asks a Gulf War veteran [Michael Shannon] she just met to stay with her? Are we to believe this? Turns out he spent years in a hospital [in the mental ward of course] and believes he was tested on.
The acting and story makes it credible and the film quickly turns into a paranoid vision of terror and oblivion. The sighting of a bug turns into a big cover-up, an issue of trust or consequences and a genuine fear. It connects bugs to the CIA, the military, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Jim Jones Temple's People! Sometimes funny and sometimes downright creepy and bizarre, Bug is not a film for everyone (the other two people in the theater with me did not like it). I laughed out loud at the absurdity and cringed at the possibilities. It is that effective and completely original.
And Ashley Judd. I don't know what to say about this phenomenal actor. I love every film she does, every role she takes. She would be a dream to interview. This gorgeous, self-assured woman is able to become the most desperate of characters [please put Come Early Morning on your netflix queue]. She delves in and does not let go. She embodies this icky, questionable woman and makes her complex and layered. Aggie is a survivor.
It is not that Bug is super deep or philosophic or existential. At the beginning I was even thinking "what is going on?" and then bang! It blows up and out and over and it's fantastic.
Bug is just a satisfyingly good psychological thriller.
Steele recommendation: See it in the theater
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