Mid-Ohio Valley

This one is a conundrum. I can honestly see both sides of the argument.
Most people I hear mentioning it truly despised it. It was filmed just down the road from my hometown and captures the lives and speech of the Mid-Ohio Valley so perfectly that viewers from this area were confused and let down. It was slow and talky and boring, just like everyday life.
Most critics, however, loved it. They found it completely fresh and daring, an unglamorous peek into the lives of some average Midwesterners living paycheck to paycheck in a dead-end town. (Which is as foreign to an L.A. film critic as L.A. is to us hicks.)
Personally, I don't think "Bubble" is the masterpiece some say it is, but it certainly isn't as bad as many of my acquaintances think. I respect Soderbergh for what he was trying to accomplish and believe his experiment was a success. I was engrossed in the story and felt a real connection to the characters. Would I have appreciated a little more clarity and closure? Sure. But it's just not that type of movie.
This is a film about people as complicated as they are closed-off, so there is bound to be ambiguity. It's about people with real hopes and fears but without the facility to express them or the means to change their position. It explores the sort of working class laborers too often ignored or turned into aw-shucks cliches in our popular culture, endeavoring, as we all do, to make the best of their lot. And for that, if nothing else, it should be celebrated as an achievement.

This movie is way better than anything made so cheaply has a right to be. It looks like your run-of-the-mill slasher flick, but there's more to it. (And it was selected to play at Sundance, so someone must agree with me.)
Filmed in my hometown of Marietta, Ohio, I was able to see it in a public screening hosted by the filmmakers. I didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised. It is tense and scary, with solid performances from a mostly amateur cast. It is also one of the rare cases when a twist ending actually ties things together and feels like a genuine payoff, rather than cheapening what came before for the sake of a shock.
Well done, Crook brothers, and I hope to see more from you.