DVD Review - Bubble
Director Steven Soderbergh's Bubble is an interesting experiment but it can hardly be called a great film. I admire him for doing something different but the results are mixed.
The story is located in a poor town in Ohio. The main action in the film happens in a doll factory. I liked the way there was so much detail given in showing how the dolls were made. It was even a bit scary when you saw how the eyes popped out of the sockets when they were put into the dolls.
There are three main characters in the film (which is very short - it clocks in at just 73 minutes). Martha is a middle aged woman who has been working at the factory for a long time. She lives with her elderly father in a small house. Kyle is barely out of his teens and works two jobs just to make ends meet. He lives at home with his mother. Martha and Kyle are friends and she drives him back and forth to work every day. They even have breakfast and lunch together. Things get a bit sticky when the factory has a big order that needs to get out rather quickly. A new person named Rose is hired and she soon becomes friendly with Martha and Kyle and even joins them for lunch. Rose has a young daughter from a failed relationship and after only working at the factory for a few days she asks Martha if she could babysit for her daughter so she can go out for the evening. Martha says yes and when she is there she discovers (to her surprise) that Rose's date is Kyle.
I will not go any further except to say that there is a murder. Because it was easy to figure out I felt that the film suffered from a lack of suspense. Someone on imdb had a different point of view on what actually happened. I thought about it for a while and although there is a slight possibility that things happened that way I tend to think that what we see in the film is what actually happened. The DVD has a deleted scene and alternate ending that gives us greater clarity into what was really going on.
The camera work is interesting but not exceptional. Coleman Hough's screenplay is just average and the character development is greatly lacking. The "actors" in the film are all really non-actors and seem to have more interesting lives than the characters in the film (they are interviewed on the DVD). Dustin Ashly as Kyle is just okay and Misty Dawn Wilkens as Rose is a bit better. But Debbie Dobereiner was actually quite good as Martha. We can read her thoughts just by looking into her eyes and that is saying something for a woman who has never acted before.
I don't know what Soderbergh will come up with for the other experimental films that he is going to make. I just know that the promise he showed many years ago is not being lived up to.
Since he won the Oscar for Traffic he has been making one mediocre film after another. I hope that he comes back to form with The Good German and Guerrilla but until I see these films I will have my doubts.
The story is located in a poor town in Ohio. The main action in the film happens in a doll factory. I liked the way there was so much detail given in showing how the dolls were made. It was even a bit scary when you saw how the eyes popped out of the sockets when they were put into the dolls.
There are three main characters in the film (which is very short - it clocks in at just 73 minutes). Martha is a middle aged woman who has been working at the factory for a long time. She lives with her elderly father in a small house. Kyle is barely out of his teens and works two jobs just to make ends meet. He lives at home with his mother. Martha and Kyle are friends and she drives him back and forth to work every day. They even have breakfast and lunch together. Things get a bit sticky when the factory has a big order that needs to get out rather quickly. A new person named Rose is hired and she soon becomes friendly with Martha and Kyle and even joins them for lunch. Rose has a young daughter from a failed relationship and after only working at the factory for a few days she asks Martha if she could babysit for her daughter so she can go out for the evening. Martha says yes and when she is there she discovers (to her surprise) that Rose's date is Kyle.
I will not go any further except to say that there is a murder. Because it was easy to figure out I felt that the film suffered from a lack of suspense. Someone on imdb had a different point of view on what actually happened. I thought about it for a while and although there is a slight possibility that things happened that way I tend to think that what we see in the film is what actually happened. The DVD has a deleted scene and alternate ending that gives us greater clarity into what was really going on.
The camera work is interesting but not exceptional. Coleman Hough's screenplay is just average and the character development is greatly lacking. The "actors" in the film are all really non-actors and seem to have more interesting lives than the characters in the film (they are interviewed on the DVD). Dustin Ashly as Kyle is just okay and Misty Dawn Wilkens as Rose is a bit better. But Debbie Dobereiner was actually quite good as Martha. We can read her thoughts just by looking into her eyes and that is saying something for a woman who has never acted before.
I don't know what Soderbergh will come up with for the other experimental films that he is going to make. I just know that the promise he showed many years ago is not being lived up to.
Since he won the Oscar for Traffic he has been making one mediocre film after another. I hope that he comes back to form with The Good German and Guerrilla but until I see these films I will have my doubts.
posted by Film Fanatic | 3:43 PM
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