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Editorial Reviews
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As an audacious experiment in the art and distribution of motion pictures, Bubble is a twofold triumph. Released on DVD a mere four days after its U.S. theatrical release (in only 32 theaters) in January 2006, this ultra-low-key drama was the first of six films by maverick director Steven Soderbergh (produced in partnership with HDNet Films and 2929 Entertainment, founded by Internet pioneers Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner) to be released simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, and HDNet cable TV, effectively closing the traditional "window" between theatrical and home-video release platforms, and causing many theater owners to boycott the film in protest over its groundbreaking strategy. To accommodate this paradigm-shifting milestone, Soderbergh and Full Frontal screenwriter Coleman Hough reunited to craft a working-class murder mystery that's perfectly suited to its experimental purpose: Quickly shot on high definition video, it's a riveting 72-minute exercise in minimal style, located in the depressed border town of Belpre, Ohio, and employing non-actors from the region who played an active role in creating their mundane everyday dialogue.
Chubby, middle-aged Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) and twenty-something slacker Kyle (Dustin James Ashley) work in a drab doll factory, molding and assembling rubber doll parts, passing dreary lunch-hours with small talk and clinging to modest dreams that will never come true. When an attractive single mother named Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins) is hired as a temporary employee, Martha's secretly possessive affection for Kyle is silently challenged, leading to an act of violence that obliterates their daily routine. In dramatizing this passive love triangle, Soderbergh (serving, under pseudonyms, as his own cinematographer and editor) emphasizes the stilted, soul-crushing rhythms of lives that have been stunted by loneliness and isolation; they live in a bubble, as it were, and Bubble is arresting in its visual precision, finding unexpected beauty in physical and emotional bleakness. Obviously not the kind of film that draws a blockbuster audience, Bubble exists on its own terms, capable of captivating a receptive audience, regardless of format or context, without losing its experimental edge. DVD extras include a video introduction by Soderbergh, the original casting interviews with the film's non-professional actors, and more. --Jeff Shannon
Chubby, middle-aged Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) and twenty-something slacker Kyle (Dustin James Ashley) work in a drab doll factory, molding and assembling rubber doll parts, passing dreary lunch-hours with small talk and clinging to modest dreams that will never come true. When an attractive single mother named Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins) is hired as a temporary employee, Martha's secretly possessive affection for Kyle is silently challenged, leading to an act of violence that obliterates their daily routine. In dramatizing this passive love triangle, Soderbergh (serving, under pseudonyms, as his own cinematographer and editor) emphasizes the stilted, soul-crushing rhythms of lives that have been stunted by loneliness and isolation; they live in a bubble, as it were, and Bubble is arresting in its visual precision, finding unexpected beauty in physical and emotional bleakness. Obviously not the kind of film that draws a blockbuster audience, Bubble exists on its own terms, capable of captivating a receptive audience, regardless of format or context, without losing its experimental edge. DVD extras include a video introduction by Soderbergh, the original casting interviews with the film's non-professional actors, and more. --Jeff Shannon
Product Description
In this unique cinematic experiment, acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh brings this tragic story to life with startling realism. A bizarre love triangle is born at a doll factory in a small Midwestern town. Lonely and isolated, long time employees Martha and Kyle have become friends by default in spite of their drastic age difference. Their dynamic is upset by the arrival of a new worker: young, attractive single mother Rose. As Martha grows increasingly wary about Rose's dubious character, she discovers Kyle and Rose developing a relationship of their own. When a murder investigation begins, it calls into question our established assumptions about these characters and life in their small town.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Abnormal in a good way,
By
This review is from: Bubble (DVD)
In a small town on the Ohio and West Virgina border, Martha and Kyle work together at the local doll factory. Martha is a middle-aged, unmarried woman who lives with her infirmed father and takes care of him. Kyle is an unfocused young man, who never finished high school and still lives with his mom in the local trailer park. Martha and Kyle are "friends." Martha picks Kyle up for work everyday, and she even drives him to his other job at the shovel factory in the same town. Everything is normal until the doll factory hires a new worker. The new worker, Rose, is a single mother around Kyle's age. Rose and Kyle become good friends, and even go out on a date together. All of these incidents come together to lead to tragic consequences about halfway through the film.
Bubble is really an odd, intense film. The character of Martha seems to paint a picture of a life of pointlessness, loneliness, and sadness. Martha obviously thinks more of her relationship with Kyle than he does. Their conversations are never complicated, and are filled with plenty of awkward silences. In fact, the silences are some of the best parts of Bubble. All the conversations feel completely real. Maybe it was Steven Soderbergh's choice to use non-actors for the film's main roles, or maybe it was the writing, but either way, the film feels very normal and realistic. Some people would argue that nothing actually happens for the first 40 minutes of the film; and they would be right. The first 40 minutes consist mostly of talks between Martha and Kyle, and silent shots of Martha going about her pathetic, lonely existence in the small town. However, once the murder happens, the film becomes much more interesting on a more normal level of film entertainment. I personally enjoyed the entire film, which runs a very short length of about 75 minutes. Obviously, the point of the film isn't the mystery. It's more about life in this small, poor town, where no one can seem to get out and make a good life for themselves. Martha's father is still there. Kyle's mother is still there. Rose's ex-boyfriend is still there. And when all their lives intersect for that one night, there are terrible consequences. I really enjoyed the film, but I don't think I'd watch it again, and normal filmgoers will probably not enjoy the slow, deliberate pacing and lack of action. Hey, it is a step up from Ocean's 12, at least.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blue States and Red,
By
This review is from: Bubble (DVD)
Soderbergh's minimalist "experiment" has been called a masterpiece of subtlety and an art-wrecked pastiche of boredom. Brilliantly conceived quietude and undercooked social commentary. Amazing or just plain dull.
What you feel about it depends on your level of patience. The story behind "Bubble" is not much of a story at all. Red-headed and middle-aged Martha works at a doll factory with the lanky, dead-eyed Kyle. They have the kind of thread-thin friendship that can only exist between employees suffering under the same deadening, colorless job. Their conversation is the same watery teal as the drab Ohio horizon into which they drive every early morning. Enter: Rose. A pale single mother with a beauty as fragile as her glances, another slight mid-western soul whose life is equal shades of futureless blue and inert, raging red. Like Martha and Kyle, Rose keeps her head down and scrabbles a personality out of her habits, hobbies, and adamant lack of hopes. When the three have a lunchtime conversation around bags of fast food, the interplay is so real, you may either be fascinated or bored. Having been raised in the rural mid-west and now pushing my life through the metal dust of downtown Seoul, I found this part of the movie to be the most dismally touching. Three hearts that have already been broken long before the film has been exposed to them. Can they be broken again? Maybe. The movie credibly coalesces around a murder "mystery," taking as much patient time as the investigating detective, and just as adamantly refusing to take sides or seep with a single drop of tear or sweat. What happened and by whom, well, it's not that big of a deal. It's the whys which are the greatest presence here. People who have no hope can still have fears, can still feel thwarted by life. What happens when those contained blues and reds bleed one into another? The actors are all regular Joes and Janes found by Soderbergh and company among the working class of West Virginia and Ohio. As many have said before, they turn in performances as rock solid and sure as any of the million-dollar names today, with the exception of Dustin James Ashley, who plays Kyle at such a neutered remove that he is about as expressive and engaging as the plastic dolls he spends all day making. I'm sure that was the point, and it plays well into the hands of the movie's pregnant soul, but it's also not very impressive. Anyone can play a blank. The movie may seem as empty as a blank to viewers with more conventional tastes, but there's a hypnotic rush to every frame. It's the ache of a muscle that has not been unclenched in a long time, a fist that is only slowly pried open, a dark bubble that won't pop, even when it's poked by the bony hand of death. Not much happens, sure. But then again, everything does.
38 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must see minimalist cinema,
By Royster "Royster" (the East) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bubble (DVD)
Another brillant piece of work from the director who refuses to be pigeon-holed, his work reminds one of not only American indie stalwarts like Jarmusch, the Coens, etc... but also European and Asian minimalists like Kiarostami, Antononi, Wong Kar Wai, Kaurismaki and Renaisis.
Soderbergh coaxed great performances for the non-professional cast and his visual is a treat as always. Definitely not a plot-driven multiplex fare, not a masterpiece, but a must see nonethless, for any who values cinema not only as a storytelling medium BUT rather, a VISUAL-AUDIO experience.
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