Sundance review: 'Bubble & Squeak' is subdued absurdism, with cabbages, that works pretty well
There’s a strong core of deadpan absurdism in writer-director Evan Twohy’s debut feature, “Bubble & Squeak,” that generates a fair share of laughs in this offbeat lovers-on-the-run story.
Declan (Hamish Patel) and Delores (Sarah Goldberg) are on their honeymoon, visiting an unnamed Central European country. (The movie was filmed in Estonia.) As the movie starts, they are being held in Customs, because, as their customs officer (Steven Yeun) tells them, there was a report that some American tourists were smuggling cabbages into the country.
It’s quickly explained that the country was recently in a war, and the people had to eat nothing but cabbages to survive — and they grew to hate the taste of cabbages so much that they banned the vegetable.
Declan and Delores claim to know nothing about contraband cabbages. The officer says they can sign a confession and admit knowledge of the smuggling, and only face a small penalty — which turns out to be a massive fine and the choice of which of them should be executed. This is preferable, the couple is told, than facing the country’s chief of security, Shazbor (played by Matt Berry), who instead would cut off their fingertips and beat them with a rusty baseball batt.
Declan — who ignores the cabbage-sized bulges in Delores’ slacks, which he says are caused by tumors in his bride’s legs — urges Delores to escape from their Customs office holding room, then try to get to the border. They break free, only to have Shazbor and his police recruits pursuing the couple through the forest. The couple also encounters a series of progressively lethal traps, and a professional cabbage smuggler (Dave Franco) who disguises himself as a bear.
Twohy has instructed his cast to speak with as little affect as possible, and presenting this bizarre cabbage ban as matter-of-factly as possible makes it even more weirdly comical. The hindrance brought by making every actor speak in a deliberately flat tone is that it denies one of Berry’s greatest gifts: His pompous booming voice. (For an example, watch him in “What We Do in the Shadows.”) Berry makes up for this with the equally odd choice of giving Shazbor a voice similar to that of the German director Werner Herzog.
There’s a poignant, if a bit overlong, scene toward the end that starts at explaining the source of Delores’ obsession. Otherwise, that deadpan tone remains consistent, producing more laughter than anything about cabbages likely has ever inspired.
——
‘Bubble & Squeak’
★★★
Screening in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again: Sunday, January 26, 9 p.m., Rose Wagner, Salt Lake City; Wednesday, January 29, 6 p.m., Egyptian, Park City; Friday, January 31, 6:15 p.m., The Ray, Park City. Online screenings Thursday, January 30, 8 a.m. to Sunday, February 2, 11:55 p.m. (All times Mountain time zone.) Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language and suggestions of violence. Running time: 97 minutes.