Bubble (Independent Film Review)

As a director Steven Soderbergh has one of the most eclectic careers in cinema.  He broke into the filmmaking industry with Sex, Lies, and Videotape, a film that was pivotal in the independent scene in the early 90s.  Soderbergh went on to direct the more commercially viable Ocean's movies (Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen).  Bubble was made immediately after Ocean's Twelve.

Bubble follows the lives of three small town factory workers, who are all employed at the local doll factory.  The film is shoved into the thriller genre, because there is a murder that happens, but for the most part the film is more like watching the three characters as they skirt around each other.

The script was not written, but improvised.  Not only was it improvised, it was improvised by the untrained actors, actors who has not so much as set foot on a stage, or in front of a camera.  The improvisation and lack of training isn't as obvious during the first 2/3s of the movie, when the actors are playing characters that are essentially themselves.  As soon as the murder takes place, and they are questioned, their lack of experience shows through.

Not all of the blame rests with the actors though.  Gus Van Sant used a similar technique in his murder/thriller Paranoid Park which it used far better than Bubble.  Even the reaction to murder (which happens in both films) is better in Paranoid Park, likely due to the fact that that film, unlike Bubble had a script.

The look of the film is harsh, grating.  The opening of the film has pretty still shots of the empty town.  After the characters are introduced though, any pretense at fancy camerawork is replaced with static over the shoulder shots, not altogether out of place among the drabness of the rest of the film.

The film is almost too much of an experiment.  All of the attempts at making the film as "independent" as it could be, made it lose all of its low budget feel.  While most indy filmmakers are trying to up their production value, Soderbergh was trying to lower his.  Ultimately Bubble looks like a cheap trick by a filmmaker known to make better.