“In the early days of the pandemic, the world faced a painful shortage of new film and television content,” we’re told in an opening title card for The Bubble. “This is the story of the making of Cliff Beasts 6 and the brave people who fought heroically to bring distractions to humanity.”
Spoiler warning: “Heroic” might be a bit of a stretch.
Sent to a quarantine bubble at a hotel in the United Kingdom, the cast of Cliff Beasts expected to spend three months in isolation while filming. However, due to COVID-19 exposures, staff shortages and other unforeseen circumstances, production was halted multiple times.
The cast thought the worst thing they’d have to deal with would be each other. (And considering they have a constantly arguing divorced couple, two drug addicts, a cult-leader, a TikTok star and a blacklisted actress in the lineup, they technically weren’t wrong.)
But they eventually realize that they aren’t enemies. They’re family—or at least, the closest thing they’ll get to family for the moment. Because despite their differences, the studio won’t let them return home to their real families. Not until they finish the movie.
Gavin, a producer on Cliff Beasts 6, eventually realizes that the studio’s demands on the cast and crew are inhumane. And while he doesn’t overcome his fear of being fired in order to help them, he also doesn’t try to stop them when they eventually make a break for it.
Sean, one of the actors, launched a “lifestyle brand slash motivational system” called Harmony Ignite after the last Cliff Beasts film. Several people now call it a religion, referring to the book he wrote as a sort of Bible. But he insists it’s not a religion or a cult.
Another actor, Howie, never professes a religious belief, but he says that some TikTok dances “pave the way to hellfire.” He also tells a friend about all the Bibles in their hotel rooms, finding it strange since nobody seems to read them. He then states he’s going to send the Bibles to his friend so that they can pray for his fellow castmates.
A man claims he is Hindu. One person references the practice of “manifesting.” Several people participate in meditation.
Dustin and Lauren, a divorced couple, have sex (we see him shirtless) after the two flirt continuously on set. They lie in bed together in a later scene. Dustin places his hand on Lauren’s chest under the ruse of covering her microphone. We also learn he cheated on her with her agent, manager and divorce lawyer.
Carol, who bailed on the previous Cliff Beasts movie, worries about leaving her live-in boyfriend for three months. And not without reason: He eventually cheats on and breaks up with her. He then invites the woman he cheated on her with to come and live at the actress’s house with him (and we see them in bed together).
After this, Carol has sex with another man staying at the hotel. (He is shirtless, and she is in her underwear.) We see them in bed in other scenes, covered by blankets. Eventually, they break up as well after she learns he is married (and has a “European relationship” with his wife) with five kids from multiple women, and three more on the way.
When Lauren is unable to film a scene, she is replaced by a male actor in a green suit wearing her clothes. Dustin then has to kiss this man through the fabric.
A man hallucinates about kissing a fitness instructor. He then hallucinates about having sex with her. (It’s seen from a distance, and they keep their clothes on.) A woman masturbates, and there’s talk about a sex aid she uses. We see some male characters in their underwear and some female characters in revealing outfits. A man ogles a woman. A movie on TV shows two people kissing.
There’s a lot of crude, descriptive talk about sex, including a gross euphemism involving a toilet. A man imitates mating noises as a sound bite for Cliff Beasts. We hear that two people have contracted STDs. A man says he caught his 12-year-old son watching porn. A woman points out the impossible movie industry expectation for women’s bodies.
One of the actresses, Krystal, is a TikTok star. She and her castmates dance somewhat provocatively in videos. Her mom asks if there’s anyone cute on set that she wants to “smooch with.”
Despite being warned not to sleep with the actors, a hotel staffer immediately falls in love with one of them. However, she tells the man that she won’t have sex with him (even though she wants to) until he marries her. They eventually kiss in one scene.
We see the CGI genitals of a Cliff Beasts dinosaur.
We also see the CGI monsters from Cliff Beasts 6 eat people, rip them in half and stab them with their talons. After one actor’s departure from set, the director writes in his character’s death; we then see realistic-looking stage props of his disemboweled body and head.
During a scene filmed for Cliff Beasts 6, the cast uses flamethrowers to set dinosaur genitals on fire (which then causes the beasts to explode). There are other references in the film to castration. Howie crushes another man’s genitals.
The studio hires a security team to keep the cast from fleeing after one of the actors takes off unexpectedly. After this, Lauren’s hand gets shot off, leaving a bloody stump, when she attempts to run away. The security team is rough with another actor when he refuses to wear a tracker. One guard is punched when he tries to restrain a man. Another is thrown through the air by an explosion (though he remains unharmed). The same man is later shot in the hand with an arrow.
Two girls get into a fistfight. One gets a bloody nose before getting choked out. A woman is tackled to the ground by a man. Two men get into a fistfight. The loser is then kicked in the gut by another man.
There are several threats exchanged throughout. A studio exec threatens to trample a man’s children with an elephant. A man uses a prop gun to scare several actors.
Actors and actresses are taught how to stage fight, but several of them wind up injured after a stunt goes wrong. A movie on TV shows people fighting and killing. A woman falls out of a two-story window. Three women slap each other in the face.
We learn Lauren burned down Dustin’s office. She later sets his laptop on fire. And it’s implied their son drowned their cat.
There aren’t many profanities left out of the mix here. The f-word is spoken 75 times (thrice preceded by “mother”), and it’s heard even more in song lyrics. The s-word is similarly heard multiple times in songs, but it’s incorporated into the script 30 times as well. “A–,” “a–hole,” “b-lls,” “b–tard,” “b–ch,” the British expletive “bloody,” “c–k,” “d–k,” “h—,” “p-ss,” “pr–k” and “t-t” are also used multiple times. God’s name is abused 35 times (four paired with “d–n”), and Christ’s name is abused another give (once paired with the f-word).
Dieter, yet another cast member, is a drug addict. He uses drugs throughout the film, which sometimes lead to him hallucinating.
Several of his castmates join him in a later scene, using cocaine, some other unnamed drugs and alcohol. They all hallucinate and say that drugs are good. Then, Dieter goes into cardiac arrest and nearly dies from overdosing because his castmates (and the set’s health manager) are all high and unsure how to help.
We learn that Sean became addicted to cocaine after this incident but that he recovered after two days in rehab. We hear that a man was addicted to meth. Howie exhibits a dependency on marijuana when he starts acting crazy while waiting for the drug to be delivered to the hotel.
People smoke cigarettes. The film hosts a cocktail party despite having minors present.
We see some somewhat accurate portrayals of what quarantine was like during the pandemic, which could be triggering for those who struggled with their mental health or who are still recovering.
But what’s also concerning is how this film aims to highlight all forms of hypocrisy that occurred during the pandemic without actually doing anything about Hollywood’s own.
Wealthy people complain about isolation from their private beaches and luxury hotels. Characters refuse to wear facial coverings or social distance. People sneak out of quarantine because they’re bored. And I won’t list every occurrence, but suffice it to say that the film pokes fun at everyone—people who took it seriously, people who perhaps overreacted, people who pretended it didn’t happen, etc.
Because of The Bubble’s inclusive mockery—no one is really spared here—it doesn’t feel personal. However, it also doesn’t do anything to reconcile these characters’ many bad behaviors, either.
The cast of Cliff Beasts 6 gets called out for their failure to recognize that bubbling in a luxury hotel while getting paid isn’t so bad; but they continue to whine and complain anyways. Two extras are repeatedly ignored when they ask to be released from harnesses holding them in the air while the “talent” gets to take a break. Unnamed (and underpaid) crew members are blamed and fired for exposing the cast to COVID and influenza, even though the cast is responsible for breaking quarantine rules.
So even though The Bubble tries to make jokes about all these occurrences, it sort of just comes off as a whiny “quit telling us we’re wrong” plea from Hollywood.
With all that being said, the studio does mistreat the cast. They’re is forced to continue working through sickness, injury and deaths in their families. Two producers note that they had to keep working even though their pets had died. And when Carol tries to voice her complaints, the studio cuts nearly all her lines and scenes, reducing her Cliff Beasts character to a punch line but still expecting Carol to fulfill her contract and stay on set until the film’s completion.
Several cast members contract influenza and then proceed to vomit all over themselves and one another (and Lauren gets someone else’s puke inside her mouth). Dieter asks a hotel staffer to hold his hair while he throws up in a toilet. Then midway through, he switches positions, pulling down his pants so he can defecate in the toilet, to the other man’s disgust. Carol’s character in Cliff Beasts urinates on herself. A woman says she was once host to a 30-foot tapeworm. A man picks his nose in public.
Dustin and Lauren constantly argue about the best way to parent their recently adopted 16-year-old son, whom they left home alone. During a video call, their son informs them that he’s dropping out of high school because one of his friends told him he could get a trust fund. We later learn he raised thousands of dollars for a fake kidney transplant on a crowdsource website. He is rude to his parents and calls Dustin the “devil” for his previous bad deeds. He also overhears Lauren and Dustin discussing whether they adopted the wrong kid.
After claiming they can’t reveal the name of a woman who contracted COVID, the studio announces it to everyone anyway. The studio insinuates that its target audience isn’t any smarter than a child.
Hotel staff are warned not to fraternize with the actors because the actors lie for a living and will use and abuse them. They’re told to constantly reaffirm the actors because actors are “insecure.” And they’re instructed to alert the producer if any actors confide in the staff.
A documentary filmmaker is instructed to do whatever it takes to get dramatic backstage footage of the cast. (The film’s cast and producers also treat him poorly, refusing to learn his name.)
A man manipulates his girlfriend, using the pandemic as an excuse not to get a job or to travel with her for her job. He then tells his children (who live with them) that she abandoned them.
Carol gets ridiculed online for her portrayal of a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian woman in a previous film despite being neither of those ethnicities (or even looking like them).
Cast and crew members insult and betray one another. People lie. We hear mentions of cancel culture and gaslighting.
The Bubble is meant to be a joke about the coronavirus pandemic. It’s Hollywood poking fun at itself, focusing specifically on the shortage of new film and television content (and the difficulties in producing this content) during the last few years.
But it almost seems to be making another statement, as well. In the film, several rich studio executives complain about isolation from their private beaches. Actors and actresses kvetch about being overworked but never pay mind to the crew members who are working the same long hours but getting paid significantly less.
Hollywood wants audiences to believe that it’s all OK because they’re in on the joke. They know they’re hypocrites. So rather than criticize them, just enjoy the movie they’ve created to distract us.
But hopefully most of us won’t be so easily convinced.
Movies can indeed be a nice distraction—an escape from everyday worries and troubles. But what is The Bubble trying to distract us from?
The pandemic was hard on a lot of folks. But those who were most affected by COVID—Mom-and-Pop shops who went out of business and families who lost a loved one—probably won’t find much humor in a movie that makes light of a $50 billion studio that, rather than suffer, sent its executives on vacation. These same executives then brag about getting vaccinated six months before the general public because they’re “rich.”
Moreover, even if the film could distract us from the difficulties COVID-19 produced (and is still producing), The Bubble can’t distract us from the bounty of foul content within it.
Profanities score well into the hundreds with 75 f-bombs alone. A scene wherein the cast of Cliff Beasts 6 vomits all over one another left me feeling ill myself. Several cast members get hopped up on cocaine, and one nearly dies. And to top it all off, there are a few sex scenes thrown in as well.
And all of that feels like a bubble you don’t really want to be trapped within.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
