This week I plan on completing a Steven Soderbergh Marathon, which I will call The Soderbergh Series, of watching and reviewing six of his films that I’ve always wanted to see but never have.  This is an effort for me to increase my already lacking knowledge of film and also to possibly introduce others to some films that Soderbergh may have done that does start with the word Ocean in the title.  Today’s Soderbergh Series has me watch me watching Bubble.

In a small Midwestern town a murder occurs which becomes the focus of three people who work in a doll making factory.

The movie has a runtime of just over 70 minutes and whenever something happens it’s not a setup as much as it is the actual story.  I must say that this movie had no effect on me; I was neither impressed nor disappointed.  When the film was over I felt almost like my time had just been sucked away and I got nothing in return, but not in the same way that you would feel having spent time watching a film like Max Payne or Meet Dave. When the movie was over I just felt numb and unsure of what to say.  The one thing that I must say that I appreciated about this movie is that it was the test run for his experimental side that eventually gave us The Girlfriend Experience which I particularly enjoyed earlier this year.

When you watch a film you have to realise that you’re being told a story and every story has a perspective/bias.  This film felt like there was no perspective or bias.  It was as if I had just seen the official investigative report from Barbara Walters on 60 Minutes or something as opposed to a film.  This I think is one of the biggest failing points of the movie since the film seemed to just hold our hand and show us a sequence of events rather than be a normal everyday mystery film.  Once the murder occurs within the next twenty minutes someone is thrown behind bars and even though we, the viewers, are left in a state of disbelief we are left to just accept the fact that this person did it.  There is no sense of hope for this character given and no feeling like there will be any hope for this character.

Soderbergh’s biggest intention was to portray how isolated this community is.  Watching these three characters – Kyle [Dustin Ashley], Martha [Debbie Doebereiner] and Rose [Misty Wilkins] – interact it feels almost as if they are the only people in this town.  Soderbergh definitely created this sense of this town which is a bubble from the outside world.  It may also help that we never saw them try to reach outside of their work environment and didn’t seem to have the fiscal capabilities to try and do anything other than go to work and go home and go to sleep.

The film is casted with no professional actors.  So the film isn’t plagued with overacting that we see movie to movie where characters have to respond with such huge effect that we end up praising most of the time.  At the same time forgetting how real people do respond to real life is something that I find quite interesting when we watch film, it’s as if we no longer want to see these realistic responses to real life and rather see these overly dramatic moments in films.  Not everyone shows shock and awe as such a dramatic moment as some of the world’s most loved actors out there would do if they were in these misinterpreted as being numb but rather it is being realistic.  How many times do you expect to hear about a person being murdered that you hardly knew and expect them to break out into tears in front of an officer of the law that is questioning you about the person and your relation with that person.

So in the end I think this is one of those films that I wouldn’t say I enjoyed watching as much as I appreciated thinking about its ideas and execution after thinking about it for a while.  I definitely won’t be recommending this for first time viewers of Soderbergh’s work but rather for those who are already in love with his work and feel the need to see some more.

IMDB says 6.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 71%

I say 5.5/10