The Team Behind ‘Bubble & Squeak’ Break Down How Their Film Makes Sense of the ‘Illogical and Absurd’
Writer/director Evan Twohy has been conceiving his debut feature “Bubble & Squeak” even before it completely made sense to him. The ridiculous comedy, which follows a couple experiencing a strange honeymoon in a foreign land, began 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until years later that Twohy was finally able to crack it. Stopping by the IndieWire Studio presented by Dropbox at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Twohy and his cast, which features Dave Franco, Himesh Patel, and Sarah Goldberg, broke down what makes “Bubble & Squeak” so unique and how they grounded the strangeness that permeates throughout the film.
“It’s this thing that’s absurd inherently,” Twohy said of the narrative, “and I think there is this process of sort of taking this thing that’s illogical and absurd, and then as an adult, much older, trying to make sense of it and apply it to my life and pull everything I had learned into it. So tonally, I think it has this mix of being this thing that doesn’t make sense — and we really tried to sort of embrace keeping things in it that don’t really make logical sense — but then also pulling in the melancholy and the wisdom that you gain as you get older.”
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As the husband and wife duo of the film, Patel and Goldberg knew that their dynamic was key to making the film work, but had limited time to establish it before shooting in Estonia. Nonetheless, as they met ahead of production, they quickly found they were already in sync after reading the script.
“We exchanged a few emails, so when we sat down around the table with Evan, we kind of discussed what had been bubbling away in our — no pun intended — what had been in our heads for quite a while at that point,” said Patel, “and the most beautiful thing about it was that very quickly we realized we were sort of on the same page in a lot of ways, in terms of the tone of everything.”
Goldberg added, “The text is so specific and really fun and ever so slightly heightened, but also quite grounded. And so there’s a real rhythm to the language that I think we both tapped into quite quickly and sort of formed a little double act with and I think that it felt important to be loyal to that rhythm. Even though they’re very different and part of this film is about love and how you can love someone, but maybe that person isn’t someone you’re gonna grow with, or somebody who, maybe you’re not right for each other, or maybe, is love enough? And so I feel like with this double act, they’re so individual, but there was a piece we had to find that was them as a unit.”
While Patel and Goldberg had to carry an element of seriousness to their performances, Franco was given the opportunity to go really silly for his role. At first, he wasn’t sure if the part was right for him, but once he discovered he could make it his own, he went all out.
“On the page, I think it was like a 55 year old grizzled Australian,” Franco said of reading his part for the first time. “I was like, ‘Alright and I really love the role and I don’t know if I can do this as that, but I think I see a way into this.’ My introduction is, I’m a guy who meets them in the woods and I have just killed a bear, skinned the bear, and now I’m wearing the bear.”
“Bubble & Squeak” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Dropbox is proud to partner with IndieWire and the Sundance Film Festival. In 2025, 68% of feature films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival used Dropbox in their film production. Dropbox helps filmmakers and creative teams find, organize, and secure all the files that are important to any project.
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