With Full Frontal and now Bubble under his belt, Steven Soderbergh joins the ranks of the most experimental and often brilliant American directors such as Mike Figgis and Richard Linklater. Bubble represents a most audacious experiment in several ways, not the least of which is it's paradigm defying release strategy. Only four days after it's January release (only 32 screens are carrying it, due to a nationwide boycott by theater owners) Bubble will be released on video and DVD as well as on HDNet cable TV. The experiment is the brainchild of Soderbergh along with internet mavericks Mark Cuban (annoying wank - owner of the Dallas Mavericks) and Todd Wagner.

Obviously this simultaneous platform release will challenge the traditional theater, to cable to video window that allows theater owners to cash in on the initial interest and excitement before it's released to the stay-at-home market. Given the reaction of the beleaguered theater owners who have seen their receipts dwindle as a result of the burgeoning home market, it's not a strategy that's likely to catch on. The film itself was designed to be bullet proof to the kind of reaction it's getting from the traditional market, shot on a shoestring, using non-actors and the most lean of skeleton crews. I haven't heard what they spent on it, but there are dentists who probably make more in a year.

Bubble is a three-character working class morality play, that was shot in the dreary industrial area near Belpre Ohio - chosen by Full Frontal scribe Coleman Hough (she's a woman) because of it's proximity to a doll factory where the characters work. The tall dark and quiet lead Kyle (Dustin James Ashley - who may very well find that this won't be the sum total of his film career) lives in a bubble. Social anxiety chased him out of High School at 16 and his life revolves around his two jobs and trying to save up a little bit, while living in a trailer home with his unemployed mother. Interestingly the DVD contains the original audition interviews for the three leads and Ashley actually does have Social Anxiety, though his character copes with it by keeping to himself, in real life it was a girlfriend who was able to drag him out of his shell. Both in the film and in real life he rarely has the kind of panic attacks that made High School so untenable.

His ride to work comes courtesy of Martha (Debbie Doebereiner, a retired KFC manager) she is an affable heavy set redheaded woman who manages to coax monosyllabic small talk out of her painfully shy friend. We learn early on that Martha has something of a protective motherly crush on the boy and considers him her best friend. They always eat lunch together at work, often eating in companionable silence, when the small talk dries up. Her life also revolves around her job at the factory and her job taking care of her elderly father whom she lives with. As you learn in the DVD features a good majority of the dialogue spoken by the characters was improvised, which gives the film it's ultra-spare sensibility and the film makers incorporated a number of circumstances from the actors real lives into the story. The film has a bit of a documentary feel and was shot by Soderbergh who also doubles as editor and soundman. His direction consisted of explaining to the actors that they needed to get form point A to point B, and to say whatever they had to, to get there.

The first sign of conflict arises when the doll factory has to bring in additional manpower to accomodate an unusually large order, and thus we meet the third member of the trio, Rose (played by Misty Dawn Wilkins a single mother of four). In the film she is a single mother of a young daughter, and while she's being introduced to the staff she immediately notices the tall, thin Kyle, with his hypnotically mysterious eyes. A fact that does not go unrecognized by the concerned Martha. Before long Rose has horned in on their lunch table and manages to hijack Kyle for a smoke afterward. Soderbergh catches some effectively creepy images as Martha's reflection can be seen spying on the two smokers as they laugh and chat.

One day at work Rose asks Martha if there might be any chance she could baby-sit on Saturday night so she might have a chance to get out of the house. When Martha arrives she gets the skinny on what it takes to have a pleasant night with her 2 year old and when a knock on the door turns out to be Kyle, Martha struggles to keep her composure. At the bar the two kids have a tough time keeping the conversation off the ground, but we do learn about Kyle's problem with social anxiety and the fact that none of the medication he'd been given helped at all and that he'd just had to work through it himself. Rose soon suggest that maybe he might be more comfortable away from the bar crowd at his place. So it's off to the trailer, where Rose meets Kyle's mother as they excuse themselves into the bedroom. They talk tattoos and this and that, but it just doesn't seem to be headed toward anything physical, so Rose takes a joint out of her purse and asks if it's okay if they fire up. He thinks it'll be okay and she asks if he might be able to get them something to drink and when he heads off for a beer she starts going through his drawers and doesn't stop until she's pocketed a fat looking wad.

When Kyle returns she starts making overtures about getting home soon, so as not to put Martha out, so they finish their beers and she gives Kyle the joint for later. Little does he know how expensive it really was. When they get back to her apartment Kyle begs off from coming in claiming that he got a weird vibe from Martha earlier and with a see you later the date is over. After getting Martha's report about how the evening went with her daughter there is a knock at the door, which turns out to be Rose's ex who barges in demanding to know what happened to his money and his weed. Evidently Kyle isn't the only victim of Rose's klepto ways. The argument gets a bit ugly but Rose manages to shove him out, while he pleads his case that at least he hopes she spent his money on their daughter. Afterward Martha asks if that was her ex-husband and gets a curt warning to mind her own business from the single mother.

Responding to neighbors who have heard Rose's daughter crying for hours, the police investigate and find the young woman dead in the middle of her living room - the apparent victim of manual strangulation. We soon follow a police detective around to the homes of the various suspects and that's all you'll get out of me. Bubble is slow, deliberate and lean - for fans of slam-bang Hollywood blockbusters, Bubble will most likely bore them silly. I'll admit that I went in blind. I'd heard a few things about the film and I knew that it was Steven Soderbergh (which is enough for me) but I'd forgotten most of what I'd read and so I watched the film from a completely objective standpoint. After I watched the special features and read up on it a good deal more I became a lot more fascinated with it. The story itself is as straight forward and predictable as could be, but it's still fascinating in it's simple style and haunting shots. I kept thinking to myself as I watched it how many people I've known who were exactly like the three characters. Unless you've lived a life of rich, pampered privilege, you too will recognize these characters, from school or church or your job or your neighborhood. That much is a testament to both Soderbergh and Hough.

All in all it's a very captivating experiment and experience and the more you get to know about it the more fascinating it becomes. For film buffs and fans of Soderbergh's work, this will no doubt be extremely appealing, but again for your run of the mill movie fan, I almost said wait for video. Isn't it ironic.

Also noteworthy is the fascinating score by Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard. The indie rock icon uses nothing but a strummed acoustic guitar throughout, exploring chord progressions in his patented melodic and sometimes meandering whimsy. It really ads to the sense of isolated desperation.