Bug review

“All we ever talk about’s bugs!” gripes Ashley Judd to new beau Michael Shannon, a deranged grunt convinced he’s been infested with nanobot insectoids. Relationships have been built on less… For all William Friedkin’s attempts to open out Tracy Letts’s 1996 stage play, though, this remains a relentlessly claustrophobic piece whose flashy coups de theatre pack only a fraction of their original punch. Reprising the role he created in London and New York, Shannon still proves chillingly effective as the paranoid headcase who inexorably draws Judd’s vulnerable waitress into his psychotic orbit. Any movie that builds towards a hysterical 10-minute rant and a double self-immolation was always going to be a tough sell, however, making this far from the dramatic comeback Friedkin fans might have been hoping for.