Bubble & Squeak Is A Quirky Charmer That Lives Up To Its Absurd Premise
My cabbages!
Sometimes a movie only needs a good premise to sell people on it. That is the case with Bubble & Squeak, a movie that has been dubbed “the cabbage movie” at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where its outlandish premise has earned it widespread attention — or at least, curiosity. Its premise: a honeymooning couple travel to an unnamed fictional country that has banned cabbages, only to be apprehended by border security for smuggling cabbages in their pants. It’s as goofy as it sounds and lives up to its premise by employing a wry, absurdist tone and deadpan performances from leads Himesh Patel and Sarah Goldberg. But when the movie’s premise is the equivalent of a joke, and the punchline is delivered in less than 15 minutes, where else does the movie have to go from there? Bubble & Squeak never quite figures out the answer to that, but it does have some fun on the way.
The feature directorial debut of Evan Twohy, Bubble & Squeak opens with a bizarre image: a pan full of simmering cabbage pieces that, instead of making the usual sounds of cabbage cooking, emanate a chorus of deep human voices, gargling and moaning in place of the usual crackles and sizzles. Then, the image disappears, like a jumpscare, or a strange thing that we dreamed up.
The film then cuts to a bland border security room where Declan (Patel) and Delores (Goldberg) have been apprehended for some unknown reason. Declan, in a dry deadpan that rivals the most stereotypical Wes Anderson dialogue delivery, reveals to Delores that this country was once embroiled in a terrible war, during which all of its citizens were forced to eat nothing but cabbage, leading to a nationwide ban on the vegetable which, if violated, is punishable by death. It’s a fun fact that Delores doesn’t take well, because she is, in fact, the reason they’ve been apprehended: she has stuffed 39 cabbage heads in her pants — a revelation that comes in a hysterical visual gag. It’s a gag that almost immediately fulfills the absurd premise of Bubble & Squeak, and which the movie spends the rest of its runtime trying to recreate, to varying degrees of success.
Matt Berry and Steven Yeun both make hysterical appearances as vaguely-accented border agents who fervently pursue Declan and Delores for their cabbage-smuggling.
Told in seven chapters that each gets increasingly absurd, Bubble & Squeak plays out almost like a series of goofy vignettes, strung together by Declan and Delores’ journey through the countryside. But Bubble & Squeak is both limited and bolstered by the specificity of its premise. The extremely absurd scenario of a country that hates the cabbage so much it employs a Gestapo-like squad to hunt down and execute anyone who flouts their ban on the vegetable is so outsized that it basically accomplishes all the world-building the movie needs. Every ridiculous new detail — whether it’s Declan and Delores running into a black-market cabbage smuggler (a charming Dave Franco) dressed in a bear suit, or an abundance of abandoned houses due to a cabbage-induced series of mass suicides, or the arrival of a national holiday dedicated to hating cabbages — only serve to double down on the joke. And while it’s a pretty funny joke, it can start to feel a little redundant.
But once you get through yet another character actor doing a ridiculous, vaguely Eurasian accent, you just have to accept that Bubble & Squeak is operating on a very specific wavelength. Of course, this is a movie where Matt Berry (easily the MVP of the film) shows up doing an unhinged Werner Herzog impression. Of course, there’s a child who can sniff cabbages like some kind of drug dog. Of course, there’s a church made entirely of hay.
But it’s hard not to be charmed by every strange new twist in Bubble & Squeak, and harder not to root for Declan and Delores to make it out, as frustratingly stubborn as Delores is about keeping those 39 heads of cabbages in her pants. Bubble & Squeak may be capital “q” Quirky, but it’s also genuinely sweet and earnest, especially in regards to Declan and Delores’ relationship. When the absurdity falls away and Declan and Delores get to finally be honest with each other, Bubble & Squeak finally gets to be more than just its premise — and it’s a moment that feels wholly rewarding.
Bubble & Squeak may take a long time to tell one joke, but at least it’s a pleasantly amusing one. Aided by a totally game cast (including a short but delightful appearance from producer Steven Yeun), Bubble & Squeak is a perfectly fun little diversion that lets you be a tourist in a strange little world — without the fear of being executed for liking cabbage.
