From The Film Review Archives: The Bubble Bursts

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Category: Laura Blum

Published on Saturday, 16 January 2010 18:51

Written by Laura Blum

Bubble
directed by Steven Soderbergh
starring Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley, Kyle Smith, Misty Dawn Wilkins
[Reviewed January 2005]
Bursting open in 32 theaters this weekend, the inaugural film of Soderbergh's six-project deal with Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment will play to empty seats. It will also appear on HDNet Movies twice on opening night, January 27, 2005 at 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. ET.

In a move that breaks ground and possibly the theatrical bank, the HDNet Films-produced title (also a 2929 property) will be available on DVD on January 31st, 2006, courtesy of 2929's Magnolia Home Video. And it aired twice on 2929's Hi-Def cable channel, HDNet Movies this Friday.

Bubble isn't Soderbergh's first foray into cutting edge digital filmmaking. Released in 2002, full-of-it Full Frontal was. (His earlier film, Schizopolis, gave hints). Still, there's a swoon to be had in watching an A-list director trapeze from big name projects like Ocean's Eleven, Erin Brockovich and even Traffic to low-wire acts with a non-professional cast.

The movie begins with a shovel scooping earth by a cemetery. One murder and 90 minutes later, shoveling bookends the story. In his 15th film and second collaboration with screenwriter Coleman Hough, director Soderbergh suggests how, ashes to ashes, some of us fall down. Whodunnit isn't the issue. It's rather the whatdunnit that fills the frames.

As the title implicates, the real culprit here may be the insulation that small town modernity imposes on its inhabitants until they implode. For Martha (Doebereiner), a plus-size Midwesterner whose idea of "fun" and a nice way to "spend time" with someone is moonlight sewing as dad vegetates in front of the TV, the popping point came without her even knowing it.

Stuck with diminishing prospects of ever marrying, having a family or leaving the doll factory where she's spent years plasticizing humanity, our brave anti-heroine catches pleasure where catch can—in calories, in small kindnesses toward coworker Kyle (Ashley) and in a subhuman regime of denial.

Martha may complain she's "ready to get out of this area" since "there's nothing here" and "you can't make money in this joint," but her pact with mediocrity seems sealed. We don't exactly expect she'll be having sex in the city by Act III. Into this depressing breach steps a stranger...

Enter Rose (Wilkins), a rose by no other name. A single mom and a babe, this maven of airbrushing scatters Kyle's fog at first site. As Rose wedges in on Martha and Kyle's friendship, her sly manipulations flag the third wheel's concern. Rose may share Martha's struggles and disappointments, but something in the way the younger woman presses her advantage and dismisses her daughter's father as "just another bad decision" alerts Martha that this woman is angry, entitled and out to get what she wants at anyone's expense.

In fact, we see Rose do some not very nice things. She steals Kyle's savings, her motive for going out with him; she throws her date some weed as a sop, which she may have stolen from her enraged ex (Smith) along with his money. And she humiliates Martha, first in not telling her that Kyle was her date–the reason for having Martha babysit—next in making her feel invisible and ultimately in making a cruel mockery of Martha's attempt to establish connection.

When Rose is found strangled in her apartment the next morning, an investigation gets underway. To Soderbergh's great credit, we grill each of the suspects and replay their potential motives even after we're assured that Martha must be the killer.

Peter Andrews' digital camera lets us in on the reactions of each character, and jiggles our expectations of whom to stare down. Though occasionally off, the first-time actors mostly play American Gothic in a refreshingly understated and believable key. The you-are-there pacing further adds to the verité feel.

In what may be the most subtle climax in the annals of murder mystery, Martha simply has a flashback of her deed. Her membrane thus lifted, she's now free to reflect on her conscious and unconscious choices and ply her loneliness for answers. Jail bars or the isolation of self, choose your bubble.

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