‘Bubble & Squeak’ is an absurdist fare that tries its best for laughs

Bubble & Squeak opens on a closeup of a simmering pan of cabbages and potatoes. We later find out that the dish is called bubble and squeak, a traditional British breakfast dish named after the squeaking sounds the vegetables make when they are cooked under pressure. A more thoughtful analysis would proclaim that the shot foreshadows the state of the film’s protagonists as they find themselves increasingly on the run, and at odds with each other.

Writer-director Evan Twohy’s debut features newly wed American couple Declan (Himesh Patel) and Delores (Sarah Goldberg) having just arrived in a fictional European country for their honeymoon. They are put in an interrogation room to wait for an hour, during which Declan asks Delores if she smells cabbages. The surprise on her face lasts a second too long, and the audience is clued in that the events that are about to unfold will be as odd and absurd as the question. Declan, an uptight data analyst who reads all the travel brochures, shares that in this fictional country, cabbages are illegal. The couple is then accused by customs officer Bkofl (a short-lived appearance by Steven Yuen), of smuggling cabbage, the worst crime they could commit. Admitting guilt leads to severe punishment: an expensive fee and one of their deaths—a decision that they will have to make.

As Bkofl goes off to bring in another customs officer named Shazbor (Matt Berry), Declan decides to make a break for it, and urges Delores to join him. Delores is resistant, at first. But when she stands up to follow Declan out the window, the audience can see the lumps and ridges on her pants—cabbages. This sets off an, true to its theme, absurdly quiet yet persistent chase by the customs officers as Declan and Delores make their way through the woods. While Declan is in full problem-solving and survival mode, Delores tries to remain whimsical and adventurous as she asks Declan’s questions like, “What is the most disappointing dessert in the world?” Their compatibility further unravels when they come across a full-blown cabbage smuggler in the form of Dave Franco, an attractive and seemingly full-of-life character that Delores finds intriguing—a sequence that elicited plenty of laughter in the theater.

Divided into fairy tale-like chapters, the scenic film wants to say a lot about the insidious nature of tourism and the limitations of love as the protagonists travel through pastoral postcards, while leaving remnants of havoc in their wake.

Bubble & Squeak premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month as an entry in the U.S. Dramatic Competition—a category that may seem a bit odd for the tone of the film. Divided into fairy tale-like chapters, the scenic film wants to say a lot about the insidious nature of tourism and the limitations of love as the protagonists travel through pastoral postcards, while leaving remnants of havoc in their wake. It is an interesting film to premiere at a time when anti-immigration rhetoric is already persistent this early in the year—it is also worth noting that of all the speaking roles the couple encounters, Yuen is one of the few people of color, apart from Patel himself, that we even see on screen. It is a fictional European country, after all, but having a South Asian man, who is exponentially more stressed out by the consequences of customs and immigration than his white wife, compete with a white man a la Franco for said wife’s affection, shows either an inadvertent or accidental awareness about the different effects of travel and movement when it comes to privilege.

Both Patel and Goldberg are so committed to their roles and the story that it is their likability onscreen that does a lot of the work to move the narrative forward. The word “cabbage” is uttered for what seems like a third of the dialogue and there is, in fact, an almost touching sequence of the couple inhaling the cabbage and having their first moment of connection by the time the third act comes around. But while the odd and quirky premise never gets explained, nor does Delores’ reasoning for traveling with cabbages, we do learn of the couple’s fate and the title dish does make an appearance again at the end. And like the dish that bears its name, Bubble & Squeak can be appetizing. But it’s also an acquired taste.