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BUBBLE Send This Review to a Friend
One of the important works showcased at the 2005 New York Film Festival was Steven Soderbergh’s “Bubble,” a tightly made drama set in an Ohio doll factory and involving working class folk in relationships that lead to tragedy.
Soderbergh shot the film on high definition digital and used non-professionals for his cast. The film is now getting an unusual simultaneous release on theater screens, on DVD and over high definition television.
The film is exceedingly effective in a minimalist way and has an atmosphere that, while very low key, builds to a predictable but disturbing climax that is an outgrowth of the particular lifestyle and relationships depicted.
Debbie Doebereiner gives a remarkable performance as Martha, a woman who masks deep resentments. She is friends with Kyle (Dustin James Ashley), but when a new employee, Rose, played provocatively by Misty Dawn Wilkins, comes onto the scene and establishes her own rapport with Kyle, Martha becomes jealous. Her world is being shattered. She is a person who bottles up her anxieties, which stir in her and are ready to explode.
The environment of “Bubble” offers a display of how some exist in small town surroundings and Soderbergh’s tension-building leads to its ultimate dramatic outburst involving murder and the ensuing revelation marked with pathos. He and screenwriter Coleman Hough have constructed an extremely sad but intriguing portrait of loneliness and frustration. An HDNet Films and Magnolia Pictures release.
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