"Bug" (2007) - Movie Review

“What !!!??? Are you kidding me?? !!!” was an expression from a teenage girl in the theater once the credits rolled up. I kind of felt it too. I had a smile on my face for a weird reason. The reason is I knew what the teenage group expected out of the movie and I cannot stop thinking that feeling of being disappointed. Call me sadist but it is kind of not good to expect out of a movie. Alright, now I am feeling guilty. Anyways, this is a movie which will definitely disappoint lot of the audience. Not a lot, everyone.

I remembered “Being John Malkovich” and I am sure people would have had the same disappointment but for not understanding. Out here it is a feeling of vagueness and absence of concrete ending. The reason most people would have been cheated in “Being John Malkovich” is that they would have wanted a way to find how this portal exists. They would have concentrated behind the science of the portal. But the fun is not that and it is the ride of being in another mind and the complex clear screenplay of Kaufman. So I decided may be I am beckoning too much of an explanation from this film. So I started thinking and realized the film does not intend the viewers to do that. It is the experience and a set up of play. The fear, loneliness and lost love are the movie. So does it make this an entertaining one? Tough question to answer.

The movie mostly happens in Room Number 7 of Rustic Motel. Agnes White (Ashley Judd) lives there alone. She gets blank calls and she suspects it is by her ex-husband who got released from prison. In the meanwhile situation pushes Peter (Michael Shannon) to stay with Agnes. Agnes meets him only that night through her friend R.C (Lynn Collins). This is the part I liked the most. Very interesting and mystical conversation goes between Peter and Agnes. The way Judd and Shannon take their characters is what makes most of the movie to sit and been absorbed into a genuine insanity.

I cannot say I was entertained nor I was stunned by the way it is taken. One thing is it kept me busy. This constant question of what is the “Bug” which may be real or not makes it running. Almost nothing happens in terms of thriller/horror in the first half of the movie. It is purely a drama till the mid point of it. Then it takes a strange turn towards paranoid and schizophrenic world which very well might be true. They make the viewers get claustrophobic. It is uncomfortable and icky during that course of time. And suddenly it gets graphic. And graphic leads to insanity. Then to weird theories and finally an end.

I hate to say that I did not like the movie, because I feel I let myself get into the depths of expectations. I expected a thriller which it is. I expected a suspense, which it is. I expected a tension filled climax, which it is. But still it is unsatisfying. I guess director William Fredkin marginally failed to put in the concept of going through the “emotions” and “experience” rather than a deus ex machina. The initial one hour of sequences only elevated the curious level for untying the knot rather than a dark emotional parody.

The reason for me to expect a deus ex machina is that the way the character behaves seems to be in between the world of realism and dream. Some times the dreams become real to the skin. The film has been adapted from the play of the same name by Tracy Letts. So its original roots would have been a short story. And in a short story, the ending is unsubstantiated and left as it is, with questions and no answers. To enjoy it is to not expect answers. I expected it.