Bubble: Critic Reviews

... a devious and fascinating feature ...

Steven Soderbergh's latest and willfully perverse excursion into experimentation.

A haunting film, made all the more intriguing by the use of ordinary people, not actors, in all the roles.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Coleman Hough aren't interested in creating a coy whodunit so much as evoking the deeper, less romantic mysteries of people -- and it's riveting.

Soderbergh has made an experiment worth seeing, but how much do you want to bet his actors have richer lives than the characters they're playing, even if those lives look just as ordinary?

Thrifty but also skimpy at 73 minutes, Soderbergh's movie ambitiously focuses on movie-rare Americans ... but never wonders what makes them tick.

A simple yet oddly profound tale of banal blue-collar lives shattered by an impulsive crime.

An impressively creepy little film.

Tests the idea that the mundane becomes ominous if studied in enough detail.

Soderbergh's use of the new technology makes this situation work.

The characters are so closely observed and played with such exacting accuracy and conviction that Bubble becomes quietly, inexorably, hypnotic.

An odd little movie and a good one, worthy for what it is and potentially groundbreaking for how it's being made available.

Soderbergh set out to make a movie about shallow people, but wound up delivering a shallow movie.

Soderbergh uses the mechanics of the grimy doll factory ... as metaphor, carefully tracking the shiny distractions we hide behind, revealing the awful little facts about their glued-on eyelashes and the identically blank faces they all start out with.

These conversations are about as deadly dull as any dialogue I've ever heard even in the earliest talkies.

The dialogue has a pleasing low-key realism that complements Soderbergh's understated direction, though one can sense a firm hand always guiding the straightforward story.

A deadpan commentary on the emptiness of middle-American life, and Soderbergh manages to pull this off without condescending to the characters.

It's not really interesting enough to warrant a regular run. But it's worth a one-shot 73-minute outing on the program of your local festival.

As the plot unfolded along the lines of a conventional melodrama, I couldn't help thinking: In addition to health care and a living wage, don't the working poor deserve makeup, wardrobe, decent lighting, and some heart-skipping drama?

There's an honesty in what Soderbergh's camera has captured that, while not real in the strictest sense of the term, is nevertheless true-to-life.

An embarrassment to all concerned, the film was written, directed and produced by Soderbergh for reasons that are not readily apparent.

This is a fascinating drama for Right Now.

... a potent and provocative look at life unhinged.

Despite its refreshingly straightforward style and compelling performers, the movie feels encased in an invisible, filmy membrane of its own. Soderbergh keeps his characters on one side of the wall and his audience on the other.

Finally got around to seeing this film and was impressed with Soderbergh's experimental style. This guy continues to be one of best directors around today. Paul Chambers, CNN.