The Bubble: Hard to shake off

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

No, it’s not a documentary exposing the underside of America's real estate market. Director and (with Gal Uchovsky) co-writer Eytan Fox's The Bubble is about the denizens of a mostly gay enclave in Tel Aviv, Israel. This cordoned-off area (not literally, perhaps, but figuratively--by being liberal, secular and "other" in a country not particularly noted for these attributes) is the "bubble" of the title, and its citizens--young, good-looking, smart and self-aware--are not oblivious to the fact that they are living in a kind of homogeneous "closed society." The thing about bubbles is: They tend to burst, and rather easily, too.

Mr. Fox has already given us two fine films, Yossi & Jagger and Walk on Water. The Bubble is the first he has co-written, and this perhaps accounts for why some of the dialog occasionally seems a bit forced, with more exposition than it can bear. All Fox's films educate us, but this one seems to be trying harder than necessary. Not that the world doesn't need an education, but sermons, even relatively subtle ones, don't seem to get the job done all that well. (Time Out magazine certainly takes its share of licks here; if I ever meet Mr. Fox, why? will be my first question.)

But The Bubble does, finally, involve and move us with its story of love between an Israeli and a Palestinian. We meet friends and family of both parties and come to understand their histories and viewpoints. (As liberal as Fox and his crew may be, they do not shy away from presenting their Palestinians as backward fundamentalists all too ready to die and kill for their cause. Their Israeli soldiers, on the other hand, seem ready for revenge killing.) The ending packs more of a punch that you might expect, giving off quite legitimate echoes of Romeo and Juliet. You may wish the movie had been better, but I doubt you'll be able to shake it off so easily.