Judd Apatow’s Netflix action comedy The Bubble is the movie nobody wanted about the COVID-19 pandemic: it’s instantly outdated, frustratingly clueless, and achingly unfunny. In an ostensible attempt to satirize a pandemic-era movie set, Apatow and co-writer Pam Brady grab their flashlights and embark on an epic adventure into the colons of spoiled movie stars who spend 14 days in a luxury hotel suite like their personal 9/ 11.
The Bubble was reportedly inspired by the production of Jurassic World: Dominion, which was filmed in the UK under strict COVID protocols last year. But apart from occasional breaks from the supporting cast – who are as underrated here as their characters are in the film – The Bubble doesn’t quite live up to the absurdity of a studio building an elaborate multi-million dollar infrastructure that rich people don’t have to sustain to grasp masks on the set. Instead, Apatow and Brady take the “times are tough for everyone” approach, naively expecting people quarantined in studio apartments to sympathize with celebrities who have wellness consultants living there and huge manicured gardens that they’re dying to get out in and get some fresh air if you wanted. In short, it’s the Imagine video of movies.
Laura Radford/Netflix
Guardians of the Galaxy’s Karen Gillan plays Carol Cobb, a B-Plus star whose latest film, Jerusalem Rising, was bombed thanks to vicious reviews criticizing the extremely Caucasian Cobb’s portrayal of a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian woman . (Of course, according to The Bubble, the problem was the critics, not the casting.) And so, Cobb’s agent urges her to return to the Jurassic Park-esque Cliff Beasts franchise, which she abandoned in part five. Cobb reluctantly agrees to sign up for the sixth installment.
And so she makes her way to a posh country resort in the UK, where after 14 days of quarantine she reunites with co-stars Lauren Van Chance (Leslie Mann), Dustin Mulray (David Duchovny), Sean Knox (Keegan-Michael Key) , and Howie Frangopolous (Guz Khan). They’re joined by new cast members Dieter Bravo (Pedro Pascal from The Mandalorian), an Oscar-winner struggling in tentpole filmmaking, and Krystal Kris (Iris Apatow), a TikTok star who’s also unsure is why she is there. Some of these characters have real-life parallels, most notably Van Chance and Mulray, who are clearly modeled after Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. Others represent more general blockbuster types: the dogged soldier, the vaguely alien scientist, the comic relief.
But even bits that were meant to be funny, like Pascal’s character’s ever-evolving accent in the movie-within-a-movie, end up with a splat. The Bubble consists mostly of long, agonizing sequences where everyone is trying very hard and produces no laughter, as if people are trying to start a fire by rubbing two wet sticks together. Sometimes it’s difficult to see exactly what the joke was supposed to be: someone is grimacing, which means a punch line must have been delivered. But what was the joke? It’s like watching a comedy whose humor hinges on the nuances of a foreign culture, only the language spoken here is Hollywood navel-gazing.
Photo: Laura Radford/Netflix
There’s also a cultural clash between sardonic British humor and broad American comedy. This is a film in which both Peter Serafinowicz delivers scathing bon mots and Pedro Pascal delivers sophomoric bullshit humor. Pascal’s character in The Bubble is a serial seducer and a staunch psychonaut. But for filmmakers who pack so much sex and drugs into their film, Apatow and Brady treat both with distanced frigidity. The sex is of the Bra-on, Herky-jerk variety. And the drugs? The depiction of a hallucinogenic trip in The Bubble is about as realistic as a ’90s DARE video, as Pascal climbs into the smart mirror in his hotel suite and imagines himself transformed into Benedict Cumberbatch. All of this goes along with the way Apatow and Brady don’t seem to have much experience speaking to people who would stay in a fancy hotel for six months, especially if they ended up getting a million-dollar payday by staying .
Ironically, the only parts of The Bubble that are somewhat amusing come from Cliff Beasts 6’s script, which has been described by several characters as absolutely horrifying. (If the “bad” jokes are the only funny ones, what does that say about the “good” ones?) The movie’s best gag comes when Kris leads a CGI dinosaur in a TikTok dance, a nod to Hollywood’s desperate attempts to keeping up with a generation that doesn’t really care about Hollywood. By contrast, the digs at the film’s director, Sundance darling Darren Eigan (Fred Armisen), are oddly mean, considering several Apatow-produced projects were launched at this particular festival.
The Bubble’s myopic view is summed up in the character of Carla (Galen Hopper), a teenage girl who explains her presence in the film by saying, “My dad is the stunt coordinator.” (Her father, played by John Cena, never actually appears in person, only appearing on an iPad screen.) Aside from Armisen’s Eigan and Serafinowicz’s stressed-out producer Gavin, no other crew members enter the actors’ bubble. It’s as if the rest of the crew doesn’t exist at all, save for an isolated part where they’re told to remain masked at all times and can’t touch the talent. Perhaps an opportunity to skewer how COVID has deepened class-based divides on set? Of course not: it’s a strained gag about people flirting with their eyes.
Photo: Laura Radford/Netflix
The supporting cast of The Bubble are outstanding, counting Maria Bakalova from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Samson Kayo from Our Flag Means Death among the characters working at the hotel where the Cliff Beasts 6 cast “simmers”. (The term is actually used as a verb throughout.) The supporting cast are all trying their best in their limited roles. But it’s telling that the only sane counterpoint to the seemingly life-threatening cabin fever of the Cliff Beasts 6 cast comes from “the help.”
Iris Apatow’s character also brings some perspective to the story. She’s the level-headed of the core cast, a regular Indiana girl whose most Hollywood-ready trait is her pushy stage mom, played by Maria Bamford via Zoom. (Brady created Bamford’s critically-loved, short-lived Netflix series Lady Dynamite, which makes this film’s script all the more mysterious.) Kris’ affiliation doesn’t make the three full-length TikTok dance sequences go by any faster, to be clear. But at least Apatow’s love for his daughter brings some affection to the way the film treats the character, balancing any “old man yelling at the cloud” humor about kids and their phones these days.
Apatow’s cast of his family used to be one of the more annoying parts of films like This Is 40 and Funny People, which transitioned from autobiographical to self-indulgent. The fact that his daughter’s role is the freshest part of The Bubble shows just how stale this film’s writing, acting and perspective really are. There might well be humor to be gleaned from the selfish foibles of the rich and famous during a deadly pandemic. But for this film to appeal to anyone who may have actually gone through difficulties over the past two years, its humor would have to take a much broader — and more reserved — perspective than The Bubble. This is what happens when someone stays in their own bubble for far too long.
The Bubble is now streaming on Netflix.