By now, nothing Steven Soderbergh does should come as too much of a shocker. If he were a musician, he would be showered in praise for his dizzying range; but as a film director, he’s routinely mauled by critics for leaving the award-winning, star-studded terrain of “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich” to muddle in weird little art-house experiments like “Schizopolis.”
Toy story: Ohio locals Dustin James Ashley, Misty Dawn Wilkins and Debbie Doebereiner (bottom, left to right) star as workers in a toy-doll factory.
“”Bubble”” falls squarely into the second category, but this time it’s an experiment in more ways than one. This low-budget film is the unlikely guinea pig for an innovation that has the industry up in arms: simultaneous release. Forgoing the habitual “release window” formula — whereby a film goes first to theaters, then DVD, then television, spread out as much as possible to maximize profits — “Bubble” will be the first film to ever (willingly) be released to all three platforms at once. While some are already sobbing over the death of the movie theater, Soderbergh has defended himself by pointing out that this is already how movies come out, thanks to piracy.
But will the little “Bubble” burst industry conventions? At just over 70 minutes, this slow-paced yet deftly realistic tale of murder in a small-town toy factory feels more like a long short than a short feature. It’s not a film likely to have anyone rushing to see it in the theater, save art-house junkies, but whether you see it in a faded red velvet seat or on your couch, you’re in the Midwest as Soderbergh guides his audience on a voyeuristic journey to small-town Ohio. If it feels real, that’s because it is. The actors are local nonprofessionals; the costumes and settings are their own clothes and homes; and perhaps most effectively, they worked with Soderbergh on their script along the way, though kept in the dark about the plot’s unraveling.
Martha (played by Debbie Doebereiner, discovered at a KFC drive-thru) is a lonely, plump middle-aged woman with pleasant, unfocused blue eyes creepily similar to those of the dolls she makes at the local toy factory. Kyle (the elegant Dustin James Ashley, a computer technology student in real life) is her shy, anxiety attack-suffering co-worker and professed “best friend” — though he himself does not return the compliment, barely mumbling his half-sentences as she drives him to the factory and to his second job.
Martha is painfully touching in her small dreams and her small talk. It’s hard not to wince as she snaps a picture of Kyle at a dingy breakfast diner because she wants a picture of her best friend, then carries on about how she’s “ready for the beaches” (having seen Aruba on TV). Kyle is just as lonely, explaining to Martha in their excruciatingly realistic break-room talk that he has no time between his jobs to find a girlfriend. Soderbergh, who shot the movie himself in brisk high-def using a pseudonym, captures this low-key despair by filming long still segments. In one scene, he has Kyle sitting in his room in his mother’s house, turned away, smoking a slow cigarette, barely moving. Barely breathing. Plenty of Gus Van Sant moments here, but with a bit more plot than a Gus Van Sant movie (which, let’s be honest, isn’t too difficult of an accomplishment).
This strange symbiotic relationship is soon shaken up by the arrival of a new factory worker. Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins, a salon stylist) is a young, attractive single mother (her toddler is played by the actress’ own child) who is bored to death with her situation. She talks on and on enough for the rest of them, and while she and Kyle start taking cigarette breaks together, Martha starts growing concerned over Rose’s character. Pretty soon, Rose is found dead.
Whodunnit?
The rest of the plot is as painfully obvious to the audience as it is morbidly mesmerizing. While many independent films tread a fine line between trying to justly capture small-town life and condescending to it, anyone who’s ever lived in an isolated area will recognize the dialogue in “Bubble” as completely organic. The result is a fascinating if stark exposition of a banal time and place loosely held together by a banal crime, yet tied up skillfully by a lingering camera eye and a luckily casted trio.
The only real false note: a disappointing soundtrack signed by Robert Pollack of Guided by Voices, which sounds like he skimmed the press release and thought, “Murder! Toy Dolls! Indie! Ok, I’ll make it creepy but simple. Really, really simple,” then sat down for a couple of minutes, strung two chords together, and repeated them as jarringly as possible into infinity.
In the end, though “Bubble” is headed straight for art-house theaters, it’s nevertheless got people talking. Soderbergh has a contract to dish out five more low-budget, simultaneous-release films over the next five years, and if they cast as eerie of a spell as this first try, then “Bubble” could very well turn out to be more than just a little ripple in filmmaking. And he’s just the guy to do it, if anyone can.
