Sunday, November 18, 2007

Bug

So, this is what's become of Ashley Judd's career.

That saddens me, 'cause the kid has some talent. And it may be she chose to do Bug to highlight those skills; it's dialogue heavy and calls for an intense range of emotions. It looks like she even pulled a Bob De Niro, adding a few pounds and de-glamorizing herself so she could look more convincing in the part.

It does take some convincing: her role, Agnes, is a lonely and sad thirty-something mother of a child kidnapped years earlier who relies on cocaine and beer to get through weekends. Agnes lives in a road-side motel on a long-term lease, waitresses at a local lesbian bar and has an abusive ex-husband who has just been released from jail. She takes in a quiet guy named Peter (Michael Evans) because she's so lonely, and eventually succumbs to his dramatic paranoid delusions, as his mental illness spins out of control.

See what I mean?

And none of it works.

Bug is surreal, unusual and manic. It's also unbelievable, stereotypical and unfulfilling.

5 comments:

Brendan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brendan said...

[I included the wrong link in my initial post]

Ever listened to Mark Kermode's film reviews? It's an entertaining show, and he recently raved about Bug -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml

The Film Geek said...

Thanks for the link, Iremonger. A lot of reviewers liked this movie, mostly (I think) because of the reasons I wanted to like it: heavy dialogue, intense emotional content and character acting. But I just couldn't bring myself to like it--it was so over the top, and so unbelievable the other stuff didn't matter.

Buzzardbilly said...

The only bug horror movie since the 50s to be worth a whiff off a turd was the remake of the fly. Why do people in Hollywood think bug movies are going to work? William Friedkin ferchrissakes! The shame.

jedijawa said...

She is more talented than that. What a shame.