The Bubble
It seemed like nonsense to me, yes, but nonsense with some charm. It is not a great comedy, and certainly not a fully successful Judd Apatow film, but I also did not receive it as if it were trying to be an important work. I saw it more as a silly film aware of its own stupidity, a very uneven satire about shooting an absurd blockbuster during the pandemic, with actors locked in, egos unleashed, ridiculous protocols and chaos that did make me laugh at times.
The premise is pretty good for a comedy. A group of stars stuck in a health bubble to shoot the sixth instalment of a flying-dinosaur franchise already sounds like a joke before it even starts. There is something funny in watching all those actors trying to behave like professionals while they are bored, hysterical, isolated, monitored and more worried about their image than about the film they are making. That cursed-shoot feeling, with a hotel turned into a luxury prison, works.
What I liked most is that it does not take itself seriously. It knows it is a film about a stupid film, made by people who believe they are more important than they really are, and it plays with that ridiculousness. The rehearsals, the digital scenes, the motivational speeches, the health protocols, the cameos, the video calls, the ego crises and pandemic fatigue create a fairly absurd whole. Not everything is funny, but some of the silliness really is.
The cast helps a lot. Karen Gillan, Pedro Pascal, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key, Leslie Mann, Fred Armisen, Maria Bakalova and the rest seem to be playing at making fools of themselves, and when the film embraces that playground-for-famous-people energy, it becomes more likeable. Pedro Pascal, in particular, has some very welcome moments, because he seems to understand perfectly that the tone asks him to lose a little dignity. And in a comedy like this, losing dignity is almost a virtue.
I also liked the satire of franchise cinema. That fictional saga of flying beasts, with absurd sequels, ridiculous mythology and actors who no longer even know what they are shooting, is a clear joke about many blockbusters manufactured by inertia. The film mocks giant shoots, producers who only want to finish, stars complaining from luxury hotels and an industry trying to keep working even when everything around it is absurd.
However, it has a huge rhythm problem. It is too long. For such a light comedy, so based on an accumulation of sketches, more than two hours is excessive. Some jokes land, others go on for too long and others simply fall flat. You can really feel Apatow's tendency to let scenes breathe, but here many of them did not need to breathe that much. Some needed scissors.
The humor is very uneven. There are moments that seemed silly to me in the good sense, the kind that catch you off guard and make you smile precisely because they are so absurd. But there are also others that feel like improvisations nobody dared to cut. The film is funny when it goes into parody, ridicule and self-awareness; it loses strength when it keeps circling character conflicts that do not matter very much.
I also do not think it is a great satire about the pandemic. It uses confinement, tests, rules, masks and isolation as comic material, but it does not end up saying anything especially sharp. Its approach is more accumulated joke than real analysis. And perhaps that is fine, because when it tries to be smarter or more critical, it does not always hit the mark. It works better as a collection of silly moments about trapped celebrities than as a deep comment on anything.
I completely understand why many people found it irritating or exhausting. There is something about famous people laughing at how hard they had it inside a luxury bubble that can land very badly. It is also true that at times it resembles too closely what it wants to parody: something expensive, long, scattered and full of famous faces. But even with all that, I found some amusing moments in it. It did not seem good to me, but it was not torture either.
In the end, it remains for me a failed but likeable comedy, a nonsense film that does not ask too much and occasionally lands its silliness. It has too much running time, not enough nastiness and many jokes stop halfway, but it has a cast, absurd energy and some scenes that work precisely because of how stupid they are. I would not defend it as anything great, but I would not destroy it completely either: within its chaos, pandemic foolishness and lack of shame, it gave me an acceptable time.
The premise is pretty good for a comedy. A group of stars stuck in a health bubble to shoot the sixth instalment of a flying-dinosaur franchise already sounds like a joke before it even starts. There is something funny in watching all those actors trying to behave like professionals while they are bored, hysterical, isolated, monitored and more worried about their image than about the film they are making. That cursed-shoot feeling, with a hotel turned into a luxury prison, works.
What I liked most is that it does not take itself seriously. It knows it is a film about a stupid film, made by people who believe they are more important than they really are, and it plays with that ridiculousness. The rehearsals, the digital scenes, the motivational speeches, the health protocols, the cameos, the video calls, the ego crises and pandemic fatigue create a fairly absurd whole. Not everything is funny, but some of the silliness really is.
The cast helps a lot. Karen Gillan, Pedro Pascal, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key, Leslie Mann, Fred Armisen, Maria Bakalova and the rest seem to be playing at making fools of themselves, and when the film embraces that playground-for-famous-people energy, it becomes more likeable. Pedro Pascal, in particular, has some very welcome moments, because he seems to understand perfectly that the tone asks him to lose a little dignity. And in a comedy like this, losing dignity is almost a virtue.
I also liked the satire of franchise cinema. That fictional saga of flying beasts, with absurd sequels, ridiculous mythology and actors who no longer even know what they are shooting, is a clear joke about many blockbusters manufactured by inertia. The film mocks giant shoots, producers who only want to finish, stars complaining from luxury hotels and an industry trying to keep working even when everything around it is absurd.
However, it has a huge rhythm problem. It is too long. For such a light comedy, so based on an accumulation of sketches, more than two hours is excessive. Some jokes land, others go on for too long and others simply fall flat. You can really feel Apatow's tendency to let scenes breathe, but here many of them did not need to breathe that much. Some needed scissors.
The humor is very uneven. There are moments that seemed silly to me in the good sense, the kind that catch you off guard and make you smile precisely because they are so absurd. But there are also others that feel like improvisations nobody dared to cut. The film is funny when it goes into parody, ridicule and self-awareness; it loses strength when it keeps circling character conflicts that do not matter very much.
I also do not think it is a great satire about the pandemic. It uses confinement, tests, rules, masks and isolation as comic material, but it does not end up saying anything especially sharp. Its approach is more accumulated joke than real analysis. And perhaps that is fine, because when it tries to be smarter or more critical, it does not always hit the mark. It works better as a collection of silly moments about trapped celebrities than as a deep comment on anything.
I completely understand why many people found it irritating or exhausting. There is something about famous people laughing at how hard they had it inside a luxury bubble that can land very badly. It is also true that at times it resembles too closely what it wants to parody: something expensive, long, scattered and full of famous faces. But even with all that, I found some amusing moments in it. It did not seem good to me, but it was not torture either.
In the end, it remains for me a failed but likeable comedy, a nonsense film that does not ask too much and occasionally lands its silliness. It has too much running time, not enough nastiness and many jokes stop halfway, but it has a cast, absurd energy and some scenes that work precisely because of how stupid they are. I would not defend it as anything great, but I would not destroy it completely either: within its chaos, pandemic foolishness and lack of shame, it gave me an acceptable time.
Mini Review: It seemed like nonsense to me, yes, but nonsense with some charm. It is not a great comedy, and certainly not a fully successful Judd Apatow film, but I also did not receive it as if it were trying to be an important work. I saw it more as a silly film aware of its own stupidity, a very uneven satire about shooting an absurd blockbuster during the pandemic, with actors locked in, egos unleashed, ridiculous protocols and chaos that did make me...
Watch the Trailer