In “And Just Like That,” it was a blatant misstep (in a show of mostly missteps): assuming COVID would be over by the time the show aired. “Remember when we legally had to stand six feet apart?” Carrie asks in the first episode like someone forgot. Throughout the season, no one in New York City wears or has a mask nearby, even at a large funeral.
At least that’s something “The Bubble” gets right. The first image of a masked Karen Gillan playing an actress named Carol, awkwardly greeting her agent and backing away from a hug, feels like instant recognition. Taking off the mask when sitting in the restaurant, putting it on the table like an additional place setting, black-masked waiters in the background – everything is familiar.
But then things quickly go wrong. The Bubble, Judd Apatow’s new Netflix film, tells the story of a blockbuster film’s cast and crew holed up in a hotel as they attempt to shoot their film during the pandemic. Getting stuck inside is where the similarities end (they don’t even get stuck for long). Celebrities aren’t just like us in The Bubble. And they’re not someone we can cheer for.
Also Read: Judd Apatow Praises Pete Davidson Sharing His Grief in Dark Comedy ‘King of Staten Island’
Apatow reportedly based “The Bubble” on a story about “Jurassic World: Dominion” that he told his wife, actor Leslie Mann, who appears as an actor in the film. Jurassic World: Dominion was filmed over an unprecedented 18 months while the pandemic began in the midst of it, and required its cast and crew to be seized in England. The film cost $165 million and conducted 40,000 COVID tests.
In art, it is difficult to predict what the next phase of the pandemic might be, whether it will end or evolve or be endless.
The film in The Bubble is titled Cliff Beasts: 6, and the cast’s rugged and colorful athletic costumes are reminiscent of the Jurassic franchise, as is the beast itself, which are basically flying dinosaurs: top-heavy with tiny guns. It was also the sixth Jurassic film to be stuck with so many Lost in La Mancha-esque themes.
The Bubble feels achingly familiar at first: Carol’s mask and the masks on everyone on set – I’m not sure I’ve seen that many masks on screen before. The face shields and cumbersome tests. The chair some distance away from a producer Carol is talking to, the muffled voices.
It’s both startling and almost refreshing to see a film that portrays COVID in this way, especially after the idiosyncratic and wistful thinking of most shows like And Just Like That. In art, it is difficult to predict what the next phase of the pandemic might be, whether it will end or evolve or be endless.
You’re basically riding the virus in Downton Abbey.
Rather than engage in weird projections like the measles panic of “You” trying to talk about COVID without ever talking about it, “The Bubble” wisely places its story squarely in the early days of the virus before a vaccine (well, ahead of a vaccine for everyone except “rich people” like Kate McKinnon’s zooming-in studio manager). However, this is where the refreshing nature of the film ends.
The cast is in quarantine and stationed at a beautiful and sprawling English country home for the remainder of their film. It’s a mansion with terraces, trimmed gardens, doting staff and every whim including flown-in weed. You’re basically riding the virus in Downton Abbey.
Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal, Karen Gillan and Leslie Mann in The Bubble (netflix)So when the characters moan about a positive COVID test from the girl who gets all their coffees, it sounds less true. Yes, they’ll be confined to their rooms, but their rooms are suites with velvet couches, floor-to-ceiling windows, and flat-screen TVs. The one that feels real? When Mann’s character protests that their room only has a shower, not a bathtub.
But that is certainly not the claustrophobic longing for greenery, an apartment with a balcony or even a fire escape. As the ` wrote in the first summer of the pandemic, “Access to green or open space is often associated with income, particularly in cities. COVID-19 has brought this issue into focus: those who have access to nearby balconies, gardens or parks have benefited from them during weeks of lockdown, while others have been trapped.
The Bubble’s characters also have endless food that someone else prepares for them and cleans up. During her initial quarantine, we see Carol consuming a steady stream of junk food. But that’s no problem even for an image-conscious actor, as she and the others also have endless workout options, including hand weights and kettle bells in their rooms and those fancy interactive fitness mirrors (that’s going to be a problem for Pedro Pascals). Burnout, sex-addicted character, probably the best in the film, who roams the magnificent halls of the country house in a bathrobe like “The Dude”).
The problem with telling a meta story is that it can feel pretty indulgent, can relate to itself to the point of choking on itself.
The characters do yoga in a hall that looks like Versailles. The teacher’s mantra? “Let go of the fear of catching the virus.” Followed by: “Let go of the fear of the film industry collapsing.” It’s an isolated, self-chosen audience that will laugh about it.
Yes, it’s a parody, but it’s hard to care for a character when his perks are so inflated. And yet they complain. Like stubborn children, they’re also not playing by the rules, which takes on new meaning when speaking of a deadly pandemic in its infancy. They “break the bubble” to have casual sex. The youngest member of the cast and crew flees to London for an urban adventure, putting everyone in danger along the way. The characters’ fights not only don’t seem real, they don’t seem sympathetic either.
Want a daily roundup of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter Crash Course.
The story of “The Bubble” begins to have the very problem it dramatizes: it drags on really long and seems much longer than its already lengthy 2 hours and 6 minutes running time. Nothing happens. Nothing happens again. The problem with telling a “meta” story is that it can feel pretty indulgent, can relate to itself to the point of choking on itself. “People don’t want to hear complaints from celebrities,” says the youngest member of the cast. It’s the truest line of the film.
More stories like this:
Comments are closed.