Downbeat co-workers in a Midwestern doll factory Martha (Doebereiner) and Kyle (Ashley) are questioned by police after new employee Rose (Misty Wilkins) is found murdered.
The revolution will not be digitised: well, not on the strength of Bubble, anyway, Steven Soderbergh’s high-def video heralded for being the first film simultaneously released on cable, DVD and in theatres in the US last year. An exercise in synergy as much as an intro to the erratic director’s mooted experimental film cycle, it’s a frozen simulacrum that has less pulse than its factory dolls who gaze indifferently at their creators.
True enough to the title, the characters exist within Soderbergh’s imitation of life, a calculated prism through which we watch nonprofessional actors trudging in a zombie stupor of wood panel walls and linoleum glare. The film doesn’t condescend to its subjects the way indie filmmakers often fall prey to, although the lab-rat documentary framing means that target arthouse audiences will probably be compelled to feel their usual smug pity.
Better approached as documentary –its “candid” style renders fiction as fact – Bubble’s midway shift into a murder procedural is less convincing, the narrative too catatonic to sustain any intrigue. Soderbergh’s interest remains in capturing a portrait of the people affected, suggesting the existential funk to which they’re forever doomed. In this way Doebereiner, her taxidermied face masking a glint of emotion, becomes emblematic of the movie – mordantly fascinating but dead on arrival, this bubble never bursts.
True enough to the title, the characters exist within Soderbergh’s imitation of life, a calculated prism through which we watch nonprofessional actors trudging in a zombie stupor of wood panel walls and linoleum glare. The film doesn’t condescend to its subjects the way indie filmmakers often fall prey to, although the lab-rat documentary framing means that target arthouse audiences will probably be compelled to feel their usual smug pity.
Better approached as documentary –its “candid” style renders fiction as fact – Bubble’s midway shift into a murder procedural is less convincing, the narrative too catatonic to sustain any intrigue. Soderbergh’s interest remains in capturing a portrait of the people affected, suggesting the existential funk to which they’re forever doomed. In this way Doebereiner, her taxidermied face masking a glint of emotion, becomes emblematic of the movie – mordantly fascinating but dead on arrival, this bubble never bursts.
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