Susan Year Itch

The Look…the Feel…of Bubble

Soderbergh, 2005

My poor friend Thara spent one Saturday in March waiting patiently for me to make the most elaborate cake ever. Not only did she wash a lot of dishes for me, she also helped me with the arduous task of making parchment collars, which is a lot harder than it sounds. If it sounds like anything. And what did I do in return? I decided, while waiting for some chocolate mousse to chill, that we were going to sit right down and watch Bubble.

Let me just get this out of the way: I love Steven Soderbergh. I think that about 90% of the time* he nails it and does the best possible job of the job he’s trying to do. Ocean’s Eleven? Great heist remake. Out of Sight? Clever and engaging flick. Solaris? A great mood of a movie. I feel like ol’ Steve is a guy who has a goal and accomplishes that goal to the letter, with enough shirtless Clooney footage to make my knees sweat.

Let me also say something else: We’re in the middle of a fad change (says I.) The whole “late-twenties disassociated protagonist meets some quirky individual and we all learn to feel again to the tune of a vaguely hip soundtrack” motif is over, pretty much. Lost in Translation marked the climax of that movement and Garden State’s mainstream popularity marked the beginning of the descent into triteness. And by the time Hollywood starts getting the picture and churning out mildly good duplicates, you know a new trend is already in full swing in the independent world.

The Country Livin’ thing, as I’m going to call it from now on, logically follows the Disassociated Protagonist thing. Think about it. In the latter, we’re encouraged to snap out of our ennui and be comfortable in our own skins. Got it. In the former, we’re going one step further and rejecting our constructed urban drama in favor of the simple life. Films like Junebug feature a character to whom we can relate and juxtaposes her/us in an unfamiliar Carolina Cheerwine-swigging** world. With this, we can feel her guilt for putting her own troubles above those of her countrified in-laws, but we also breathe a little easier seeing the direct contrast between them, identifying with her discomfort and alienation, and allowing ourselves a certain amount of relief that our lives are a little more comfortable and a little more, shall we say, enlightened.

Bubble cuts to the chase. Get rid of the urban, artsy character thrown in for our identification and what are you left with? A film that nobody will really like.

In other words, Bubble drills down to the level of Country Livin’ Normalcy. The characters seem awkward because real-life people are awkward. The plot seems slow because real-life plots are slow. There’s no twist and no suspense. Martha’s motivation to murder a young, single mother isn't surprising; she shows interest in Martha’s only friend! In the bubble (GET IT?) of Martha’s extremely small life, her one joy is about to be taken away from her, and she reacts in kind.

We all have similar bubbles, and if our daily drama was on display for the world, you can bet it would get equally as scornful Netflix Member Reviews. Nobody cares about this sort of minutia, unless it directly involves them. There’s a reason it’s called a “bubble” in the first place – someone’s inside and someone’s outside. And without that urban hip character condescending to slum amongst the poor folk, we don’t have anything in this picture relating to us. And conversely, if you can identify with Bubble’s Appalachian Ohio setting, as does my friend Thara, who grew up in West Virginia (damn, that is a good picture), you’re bored and irritated and a little uncomfortable, and that’s understandable. They don’t link the word “escapism” to moviegoing for nothing. You watch films to forget about your own bubbles for an hour and a half, not to be reminded of them.

As far as the grand marketing experiment of releasing a film in theaters and on DVD simultaneously***, I’m not exactly sure what they were trying to prove. That they’re not in it for the money? Well, when you’re Steven Soderbergh, you don’t have to be. You can afford to make these sorts of gestures with a film that is its own experiment in filmmaking and what’s more, must be generally unlikeable in order to prove its point.

Although it’s certainly possible that they just wanted to get those DVD extras out there ASAP, just to shed some light on the subject and defend their reputations to the inevitable naysayers who think that they just slipped up and made a bad film. The extra features also entertain your household pets:

*Anyone who has anything to do with Waking Life automatically gets docked a few percentage points.
**Cheerwine is the most delicious beverage ever. Oh my God, I think about it on an hourly basis and kick the Coke machine in my office whenever I walk by.
***"When the 'bubble' bursts"? Psshh.