"The Bubble" (2022): Covid-Era Plot Drives Hollywood's Latest Attempt at Quarantine Therapy.

From director-writer Judd Apatow comes The Bubble, a pandemic-era film meant to be part therapeutic and lighthearted - and at least partly a cash-grab. I can’t blame Apatow and Co. for going for it. With an amusing and seasoned All-Star cast, The Bubble tackles multiple levels of meta-theatricality laced with satirical covid-era humor targeted at the ironic hypocrisies of Hollywood.

How does one describe such a film as The Bubble? The premise is as follows: a cast and crew making a D-movie, which is actually a big-budget franchise action movie, must be kept together in a “Covid Bubble” amid the pandemic. It is no surprise that making a film about making a film, within a film, within a film, in a Covid bubble, while commenting on the film “The Bubble” is a severe metatheatrical, mind-bending concept. That multi-layered meta-theatricality is heightened further when considering that director Judd Apatow, actress wife Leslie Mann, and actress daughter Iris Apatow probably had to do some kind of their own “bubbling” when shooting the film. The relationships between these three are pretty generally well-known. However, if you didn’t know about this Hollywood family before viewing “The Bubble,” then you were spared from an extra layer of line-blurring reality. Sorry if I just ruined that for you. Whoops.

As many film critics and enthusiasts are wont to do, I couldn’t help categorizing this film and finding the titles to use for comparison. First, the metatheatrical Covid-era humor that dominates The Bubble is reminiscent of Netflix’s other titles, Death to 2020 and Death to 2021. These two mockumentaries are textbook examples of satirical comedy backdropped by the Covid pandemic and global events. They also take the opportunity to poke fun at the film industry and the circumstances surrounding it. Solidifying the parallels is the casting of Samson Kayo, who plays health officer Bola in The Bubble, and an epidemiologist named Pyrex Flask in the “Death To” mockumentaries. These three films will be the foundation of a Netlifx-specific category called “The Covid Comedies.” Netflix can reach out about hiring me, thanks.

Moving backward in cinema history, we find the iconic works of satirical comedy cinema with Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles (1974), History of World Part 1 (1981), and Space Balls (1987). Perhaps the most relevant example, and the one I couldn’t stop thinking about throughout watching The Bubble, is the scene at the end of Blazing Saddles where Sherriff Bart and Hedley Lamar traipse around the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California. This scene creates hilarious instances of meta-theatricality and commentary on the state of filmmaking at the time. The Bubble and Blazing Saddles’ self-awareness is what draws them together. The Bubble’s humor is darker and doesn’t deliver quotable one-liners like Brooks’s films, which is a missed opportunity of creating a comedy embedded in situational comedy.

Changing gears, the film-within film-within film concept of The Bubble also reminded me of some post-World War II cinema, specifically the French New Wave’s Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961) and Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959). Both of these films play with the idea, at varying levels, of viewing and making films within the film itself. I’ll take the hit and maybe an eye-roll at the highest-level pretentious-film-scholar trope of fawning over the French New Wave.

I think it is worth noting the similarities between the films for anyone who wants to hear me out and draw parallels with me. Coming out of a period of global upheaval and trauma, these films comment on people’s experiences in their world, and all are based in the entertainment industry. The Bubble and Hiroshima, Mon Amour draw direct parallels in the film industry, while Cleo from 5 to 7, moves the influence of the music and film industries to the outskirts of the A and B plots. Does The Bubble deserve to be called out with the likes of these two iconic films of cinema history? Perhaps not, but I found the comparisons interesting.

The Bubble has not performed particularly well with critics or audiences. The film is rating at 23% on the Tomatometer with 83 reviews and a 35% audience score with over 250 reviews at the time of writing. On IMDb, The Bubble rates 4.7 out of 10 stars out of 10,000 ratings at the time of writing. However, The Bubble maintains its status in Netflix’s Worldwide and USA Top-10 lists in its first week. Perhaps audiences and marketing will spread the word, and viewership will maintain.

What may deter some audiences is the anxiety-inducing nature of the film, which brings just enough realism to the quarantining and testing depicted in the film. This is similar to Don’t Look Up’s (2021) realism of imminent disaster, politics, and the media, making the film fascinating but hitting a little too close to home for audiences. Due to the nature of The Bubble’s plot, specifically the D-movie they’re shooting and one instance of absurd maiming, it is easier to get through than Don’t Look Up. The comedy styles are similar but deter just enough to make a divide between the genuinely absurd and head-shaking comedy styles.

Unfortunately, The Bubble will not live up to the staying power of any of these films and lacks the truly hilarious one-liners needed for reference in conversation. Perhaps a meme or two might develop from the film, but such tendencies of society are hard to predict accurately. The Bubble is just the beginning of the Covid-set plots to come our way in the future. The film is worth streaming on Netflix if you want to commiserate and feel validated by your lock-down experience, poke some fun at Hollywood, and enjoy a grade-A ensemble cast.