Movie Review: The Bubble

The stress, isolation and uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic triggered substantial shifts in certain individuals' behavior. For Judd Apatow, that change was forgetting what made him one of the most impactful and influential comedic filmmakers that Hollywood has ever seen. His pandemic-birthed creative endeavor The Bubble is a head-scratching affair that falls so far below that rest of his directorial efforts that it's hard to fathom that the same person that made The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up was behind it.  

What makes the execution of The Bubble particularly puzzling is that boasts a really promising setup: A group of actors (Karen Gillan, David Duchovny, Iris Apatow, Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal, Leslie Mann, Guz Khan) working on a major studio movie during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic find themselves struggling to adapt to the restrictions that are imposed on set and in the bubble hotel the studio is requiring them to stay at. That premise implies that The Bubble will provide Apatow with the type of loose sandbox he needs to create a showbiz comedy that is full of absurdity, insanity and satirical shots at the entitlement and self-importance of people that work in the film industry. To be fair, The Bubble is indeed a satire that takes aim at the Hollywood machine that contains some absurd and insane events, there just isn't a whole lot of significant laughs to be had while that playbook is being run.

Nearly every gag that The Bubble produces feels like it was much funnier on the page than it is in practice. Even the bits that do actually work including a dinosaur/human dance number led by Iris Apatow's TikTok star character being inserted into the movie at the last minute, a Zoom concert intended to boost morale among the cast and a surprisingly morbid gag involving an individual's failed attempt to escape the quarantine hotel, the zippy camaraderie and emphatic punchlines that have defined Apatow's past projects are mostly MIA. Seeing a group of naturally funny performers (in addition to the aforementioned leads, Fred Armisen, Kate McKinnon, Peter Serafinowicz, Vir Das, Rob Delaney and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm breakout Maria Bakalova round out the primary cast) being guided by a director that boasts impeccable comedic instincts turn out such half-hearted efforts is really disheartening. While the script has some problems with setting up spaces for jokes to build and really leaning into the absurdity of the situations its characters find themselves in, a lot of those issues could've been nullified if the jokes had been delivered with conviction and it's supremely odd to see Apatow and this group of actors show so little interest in doing so. 

Considering that I believe his previous film The King of Staten Island is one of his best, I'm willing to chalk up The Bubble as an outlier misfire for Apatow. COVID lockdowns did a lot of weird shit to people brains and creating a lukewarm "topical" project that probably wouldn't have left his computer screen if it wasn't for the generosity of the Netflix Entertainment Bank was the symptom of Apatow's time spent in that hazy time capsule. The lessons gained from this failed experiment should be enough for Apatow to get back on track with his next film and if they aren't, it'll be time to start really questioning if his head and heart are still in the moviemaking business.    

Grade: C+