REVIEW OF BUBBLE

It was exciting to see Bubble. This film was supposed to revolutionize the film industry and it was by a director who has repeatedly impressed me with his storytelling skill, grand imagination and sense of the human center of his films. He knows why people watch movies like Ocean's Eleven and why movies like Solaris are important to keep making even when studios would like to see Ocean's 12, 13, 14, 15…. You get the idea.

For a great overview of the controversy surrounding Bubble check's out Todd's Bursting the Bubble post. This is my review of the film.

BUBBLE

It was exciting to see Bubble. This film was supposed to revolutionize the film industry and it was by a director who has repeatedly impressed me with his storytelling skill, grand imagination and sense of the human center of his films. He knows why people watch movies like Ocean's Eleven and why movies like Solaris are important to keep making even when studios would like to see Ocean's 12, 13, 14, 15…. You get the idea.

For a great overview of the controversy surrounding Bubble check's out Todd's Bursting the Bubble This is my review of the film.

A scant few screens are going to host Bubble although it's simultaneous airing on television will bring it a wider audience. My question is whether most in whatever audience the film gets will be prepared for Soderbergs unusual slice of uncertain midwestern life.

On the surface the plot sounds ripe for melodrama, intrigue and dense exploration of small town America. An older woman has a friendship with a younger male coworker. When another younger female coworker strikes his fancy this newcomer is murdered. Who did it? Why? And how if at all has living in the small town “bubble” of mundanity contributed to the killer's motives? Are these people insulated from higher life or have they found some sort of transcendence.

Soderberg hints at answers but never really comes across in this film. Bubble isn't half baked-it's almost nonexistent.

But here's the rub.

I lived in a place just like the town in Soderberg film. And the non-actors in it are like carbon copies of people I grew up around and hung out with as a young adult.

As I sat in the screening room after the film I realized that I wanted to look over my shoulder. Here all of us were, critics, but how well do we really know each other? Were our lives, our passions, our day to day any less mundane than that of Bubble's characters? The doll factory the characters work in produces miniature dreams-objects that are invested with meaning by the children they are given to. Yet at the end of the day those dolls are just objects.

Soderberg finds a small spark of humanity in each person inhabiting his small world and in the end, when the Bubble breaks, and the damage is assessed the film emerges as something more than a whodunit. As I gather the pieces of each life in mind and begin to reassemble them I imagine futures that might have been, dreams that suddenly don't seem foolish at all. And I contemplate the immanent breaking of my own false security.

Bubble works for those who will do hard work with it but it's not casual entertainment.

Where will it sit in Soderbergs career- his Bubble? It's tough to say. I think I can remark with some certainty that thoughtful moviegoers will walk away strangely heartened, fond of these people, connected somehow. The characters of Bubble are us, mundane warts and all, stories without resolution but we tell our story with a yearning, a fire and something that is more than the sum of our parts emerges.

You ScreenAnarchistss tend to be pretty adventurous. I encourage you to check this one out. Ignore the hype, and go alone if you can. Sit in the dark, imagine yourself in a small town where nothing is magical...