'Bubble'

Magnolia Pictures 

Years from now, “Bubble” will chiefly be remembered as the first film to be released in theaters and on cable and DVD simultaneously. And while that’s a fair milestone to mark, it ultimately detracts from the film itself, which is a quiet crime drama with some excellent performances.

“Bubble” is a lower than low-key film. It moves at the same pace as the lives of the characters it chronicles—languid, but not plodding, a steady, matter-of-fact journey punctuated with a few moments of excitement. We follow the lives of Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) and Kyle (Dustin James Ashley), both of whom work at a doll factory in a small Ohio town. Middle-aged Martha cares for her elderly father and selflessly shuffles Kyle to and from work. Kyle, meanwhile, drifts aimlessly through his two factory jobs, spending his off time smoking cigarettes and eating fast food with Martha. But their friendship is interrupted when comely young Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins) begins work at the doll factory. Rose and Kyle hit it off, but Martha is suspicious of the young woman. When Rose turns up dead the morning after a date with Kyle, their lives are thrown into turmoil.

What makes “Bubble” work are the three leads, none of whom had any prior film experience. These are actual regular people whose lives are eerily similar to the characters they portray. Screenwriter Coleman Hough interviews the three for a featurette on the DVD, and we find that Doebereiner is a former manager of a KFC restaurant, Wilkins is a hairdresser and mother of four, and Ashley worked a string of factory jobs while in high school. This kind of relentless realism, along with Steven Soderbergh’s sparse direction and use of digital production, give “Bubble” a homemade, Raymond Carver-esque quality. It’s the sort of crime story that you’d find on the front page of a small-town newspaper, a tale that draws its complexity and excitement not from the crime itself, but from the secret lives of those involved.

“Bubble” is the first of six short films Soderbergh is directing for HDNet, a film company backed by former Internet mogul Mark Cuban, who also owns the Landmark chain of theaters. From a filmmaking standpoint, “Bubble” is a successful experiment, and Soderbergh once again proves he’s a master of both blockbusters and low-budget indie films. From a marketing perspective, though, “Bubble” could have fared better. While cable on-demand orders for the film were high, “Bubble” only opened on 32 screens.

There’s no word on how DVD sales fared. While the disc boasts a copious amount of extras (including audition tapes, an interview with Soderbergh, a deleted scene and more), the disc’s $25 list price is far too expensive for a 70-minute film. However, DVD is probably the best way to view “Bubble.” The various extras reveal that the process behind the film is just as interesting as the final product and are an excellent chronicle of film history in the making.

also in February:

Controversial Classics Collection Vol. 2: The Power of Media (Feb. 28): Warner Brothers follows up their first stunning collection of movies that made headlines with a trio of movies all about the media. The boxed set features two-disc special editions of “All the President’s Men,” “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon.” More than three decades after their initial releases, this trio of films still has plenty to say about the workings of our news media.

Mirrormask (Feb. 14): You’ll be hard pressed to find a better Valentine’s Day gift than Dave McKean’s visually sumptuous “Mirrormask.” Ostensibly a kid’s movie, this is more a treat for grown-ups. Sony’s packed DVD features an interview with co-writer Neil Gaiman, a Q&A session from the 2003 San Diego ComicCon, and behind-the-scenes documentaries.

Wallace & Gromit Cracking Collector’s Set (Feb. 7): Dreamworks is wisely releasing all of Wallace and Gromit’s adventures in one massive offering. Collected here are the duo’s first three shorts—“A Grand Day Out,” “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Close Shave”—as well as their recent feature-length “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” The hours of Wallace and Gromit goodness more than make up for the dearth of extras on the discs.

Action: The Complete Series (Feb. 21): Before “Arrested Development” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was “Action” a cutting-edge, laughtrack-free sitcom that briefly flittered across the TV landscape in the mid-1990s. The always reliable Jay Mohr stars as Peter Dragon, a slightly slimy producer in search of a blockbuster to save his sinking company.