I just came from a screening of William Friedkin’s latest movie (I won’t say new, as it played Cannes a year ago), Bug, which stars Ashley Judd. It’s nothing like the sort of a film that you usually see in your head when someone says ‘An Ashley Judd movie,’ and that’s a good thing – Judd delivers an excellent, occasionally harrowing performance in a movie that’s exactly the sort of film we all bitch that no one makes anymore.
Maybe the ‘Ashley Judd movie’ formula died with Twisted, but you have to give the girl credit for not trying to bring it back. Bug is in theaters soon, and now she’s signed on to another real movie, one that will pit her against real actors – Wayne Kramer’s Crossing Over. John Edwards – neither of them – are involved, by the way.
The film is a Traffic-like look at immigration in America, and despite directing Paul Walker to his best performance ever, Kramer has so far assembled Harrison Ford, Sean Penn, Cliff Curtis and Ray Liotta to star. Judd joins this cast as immigration attorney trying to get the adoption of a Nigerian girl through the system.
Judd’s actually got some chops, so it’s nice to see her out of the shitty thrillers (the cinematic equivalents of the bad crime books sold in bus stations) and trying to actually do some acting for a change.