Criticism of ‘The Bubble’ on Netflix: an attempt at satire loaded with stars that is not funny

Netflix’s ‘The Bubble’ is not funny. There are jokes. Some of them even work. But they work like the last bite of an overly rich dessert: nauseating and full of regret.

Judd Apatow’s pandemic comedy has premiered on Netflix and features a top-notch cast that should make any contemporary movie and/or TV lover drool. Karen Gillan, Pedro Pascal, Keegan-Michael Key, Maria Bakalova, Fred Armisen: the list literally goes on. From beloved TV comedians (Guz Khan) to bona fide movie star cameos (Benedict Cumberbatch), ‘The Bubble’ has them all.

What it has in distribution it lacks in… well, in everything else. The script is so aggressively ironic that soon your face starts to hurt. There are a limited number of times we can hear these billionaire actors in real life playing billionaire actors in fiction who complain about being locked up in a mansion, being waited on day and night (even if the ones who serve them are a little weird). ), while at the same time lamenting in their falsely modest way that they know they don’t have it that bad, before you want to stick something sharp in your eye.

Excess self-consciousness exists, and ‘The Bubble’ is full of it. Even the so-called voice of the public (ie all the non-actor characters) make lowest common denominator comments about these A-list celebrities. Apatow tries to cover all the bases of those affected by the pandemic. A grandmother dies. A waitress is a hero for risking her life to serve food. The sexual tension that has no way out (unless, of course, you’re Matt Hancock).

The fundamental problem is that the situation that ‘The Bubble’ is pointing to with a neon sign that says ‘LAUGH NOW’ is very real and very unfunny.. Those with enough money have been able to change the world to fit their (sometimes very real) anxieties, while the rest of us have to figure it out.

There are real people who fled the cities to their second homes, who could afford to use private cars when they needed to get somewhere, and who referred to riding the subway as ‘being in the trenches’ even though the rest of us he had no choice but to be at war. Whatever humor ‘The Bubble’ is trying to find in this situation is lost in no man’s land..

Their best moments are the flashes of sheer madness these celebs have, the kind of moments you could see them pandemic or no pandemic.: Pascal’s Dieter trying to have sex with an AI training bot (one of the few brilliantly funny moments thanks to a deadpan Daisy Ridley), Key’s failed actor seeking relevance by creating a cult (“Who defines a cult anyway?” he asks with almost endearing desperation), or the way Armisen justifies his latest film about Skittles. (Diversity! Inclusion! Corporate Greed!)

Those moments of self-deprecating satire work because they’re just ‘celebrities’, but also because we identify with them. We’ve all been worried about feeling irrelevant or being lonely and horny. The rest of the film, however, is so absorbed in its own opulence (while at the same time yelling, ‘We understand you!’) that it’s not an inviting tone. It’s a reminder of the hackneyed saying ‘We all have the same 24 hours in a day’ – it’s blatantly untrue and unfunny to be reminded of that.

So, why would you want to sit through nearly two hours getting hit over the head with the same message? We all suffer from the pandemic! But some of us suffer differently than others, many of us are still suffering, and no amount of horseplay can remove that anger.

We know that those with power and money were able to get around the rules, even when they tried to claim they were doing their part and living in the ‘trenches’ with us. It’s a fundamental untruth, and trying to turn that into a joke is not only probably offensive to some, but also… just not funny at all..