Bubble & Squeak is absurd and a total head-scratcher. We might take something from it.
You’ll know within the first five minutes whether this is a movie you’ll want to finish. This first scene has Declan and Delores, on their honeymoon, being interrogated . . . in a country that has outlawed cabbages, because its society has, for several reasons, deemed cabbages an affront to all that is good.
If you’re still with me, there’s more: Most of the dialogue is brief, even hollow-feeling. People talk more about cabbages or the worst desserts ever or job titles than they do about real life problems—for example, the predicament in which they find themselves.
And so we follow Delores and Declan (played brilliantly) as they run from the police (played absurdly) through the forest, with line after line of silly nothingness echoing through our brains. Mix that together with locals and strange events, and we have an intriguing story.
If you enjoyed the first five minutes then you’ll appreciate the movie as a light frolick—until the end, when the snowball has that been growing is revealed. If until then you had laughed at all at the silliness, then now, you just might cry at the beautiful, bittersweet depth.
Maybe Bubble & Squeak is a movie I don’t understand. But maybe, maybe it’s a good-natured wink; a refreshing reminder that although life is absurd, if we stop fighting it, we might have time to hear ourselves, learn something, and create something good on our own terms. Pretty great takeaway from something that watches easy.
