Another installment in one of my favorite types of film-making, following the stellar success of Gus Van Sant's masterpiece "Elephant" comes a psychological story about the lives of three people. This is a story that reaches into the future of film-making and detaches itself from any clichéd characters. It's a story that places the audience right in the center of three regular people, with ordinary lives. The uber-director Steven Soderbergh goes beyond the ordinary independent directing and focuses more on the situation, rather than the outcome.
Soderbergh casts the three main roles to locals of the town they shoot in, and uses their actual houses as their houses in the movie. He carefully chooses these people to create a sense of realism, and subtlety. Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), although previously never acted in her life, gives a great performance as the jealous(?) factory-working middle-aged single woman who normally stays home and takes care of her father, whom she lives with. Her inexplicable need for possession of her best friend and co-worker Kyle (Dustin Ashley) could be creepy in your typical Hollywood film, but with the realistic approach to this little film, we don't ask questions.
From the moment the movie starts, we observe the characters as they go about their boring ordinary lives. Martha wakes up, makes food for her father, picks up Kyle and goes to the doll factory where they work. They spend their lunch hour talking about nothing, but we still watch to fulfill our voyeuristic needs. We then get introduced to Rose (Misty Wilkins), who gets hired at the factory and automatically feel obligated to use everyone. She smiles at Kyle the moment they look at each other, non-apologetically seeking some sort of play-toy. A doll, if you will. Rose brings some life to the duo-turned-trio, and we quickly learn that Martha doesn't want her around.
From there, the movie doesn't speed up but offers a sort of safer route for some level of suspense. Martha's asked to take care of Rose's baby as Rose and Kyle go out on a date. Rose always seems to have motives. She befriends Martha to take care of her daughter, and to give her rides to her other job, and she befriends Kyle to take advantage of his shy, passive behavior.
The movie quickly shifts, but in the same way Van Sant's "Elephant" did when the children decided to shoot up the school. Rose steals money from Kyle, goes home and gets confronted by her ex-boyfriend whom she also stole money from. Martha sees the event, and the next day Rose turns up dead. Three possible witnesses, three possible motives, but exactly who murdered Rose? Soderbergh knows you'll ask these questions, but also knows what to do with the film to make it flow and keep it realistic.
The dialogue in the film is massively realistic in that the actors actually speak their own words. They get told point A and point B, then rely on their own instincts to create the mood. We observe these characters as if we were watching a documentary about nothing. They eat, they sleep, they smoke, they work. And while the murder of Rose seems almost random, especially because it happens nearly 50 minutes into the 73-minute film, we realize that there has been an obvious foreshadow of the event.
A magnificent film that avoids any massive advertisement and profit, and a true masterpiece in the future of film-making, "Bubble" represents an amateur-style movie that's so much more. In this day and age, where big box-office movies are the central aspect of success, movies such as "Bubble" and even "United 93" definitely need a large amount of recognition.
Soderbergh casts the three main roles to locals of the town they shoot in, and uses their actual houses as their houses in the movie. He carefully chooses these people to create a sense of realism, and subtlety. Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), although previously never acted in her life, gives a great performance as the jealous(?) factory-working middle-aged single woman who normally stays home and takes care of her father, whom she lives with. Her inexplicable need for possession of her best friend and co-worker Kyle (Dustin Ashley) could be creepy in your typical Hollywood film, but with the realistic approach to this little film, we don't ask questions.
From the moment the movie starts, we observe the characters as they go about their boring ordinary lives. Martha wakes up, makes food for her father, picks up Kyle and goes to the doll factory where they work. They spend their lunch hour talking about nothing, but we still watch to fulfill our voyeuristic needs. We then get introduced to Rose (Misty Wilkins), who gets hired at the factory and automatically feel obligated to use everyone. She smiles at Kyle the moment they look at each other, non-apologetically seeking some sort of play-toy. A doll, if you will. Rose brings some life to the duo-turned-trio, and we quickly learn that Martha doesn't want her around.
From there, the movie doesn't speed up but offers a sort of safer route for some level of suspense. Martha's asked to take care of Rose's baby as Rose and Kyle go out on a date. Rose always seems to have motives. She befriends Martha to take care of her daughter, and to give her rides to her other job, and she befriends Kyle to take advantage of his shy, passive behavior.
The movie quickly shifts, but in the same way Van Sant's "Elephant" did when the children decided to shoot up the school. Rose steals money from Kyle, goes home and gets confronted by her ex-boyfriend whom she also stole money from. Martha sees the event, and the next day Rose turns up dead. Three possible witnesses, three possible motives, but exactly who murdered Rose? Soderbergh knows you'll ask these questions, but also knows what to do with the film to make it flow and keep it realistic.
The dialogue in the film is massively realistic in that the actors actually speak their own words. They get told point A and point B, then rely on their own instincts to create the mood. We observe these characters as if we were watching a documentary about nothing. They eat, they sleep, they smoke, they work. And while the murder of Rose seems almost random, especially because it happens nearly 50 minutes into the 73-minute film, we realize that there has been an obvious foreshadow of the event.
A magnificent film that avoids any massive advertisement and profit, and a true masterpiece in the future of film-making, "Bubble" represents an amateur-style movie that's so much more. In this day and age, where big box-office movies are the central aspect of success, movies such as "Bubble" and even "United 93" definitely need a large amount of recognition.