In an unremarkable town, the remarkable happens. That director Steven Soderbergh can make it seem both  is faint praise for this exercise that seeks to find meaning in the mundane. For a little over an hour, we’re flies on the wall of Nowhere, America where three lives intersect at a rubber factory. It employs Martha, a frumpy, middle-aged woman who makes extra money stitching clothes for dolls made by the plant. Her best friend is Kyle, a young co-worker whose only entertainment is getting stoned in his bedroom. Life changes abruptly when an attractive solo-mother arrives and rearranges the social order. Rose quickly drives a wedge between the pair when she asks Kyle on a date and Martha to baby-sit. Evil intervenes the next morning: Rose is found dead. The police round up Kyle, Martha and a violent, ex-boyfriend for questioning.

Eschewing conventional drama, Soderbergh gives this the full indie treatment. Using non-actors in actual settings – the police inspector is Nowhere’s legitimate police inspector – he creates a peculiar sense of reality. It’s as if we’re watching the flip side of a documentary about the day a normal person goes temporarily mad. News reports would feature shocked neighbours who never thought this kind of thing could happen in Nowhere, certainly not in their street. It could be seen as a companion to Elephant as it explores the nearness of fate amid the seemingly ordinary. Its no-frills approach, its lack of poetry, is what makes the film such a risky proposition.

Bubble depends heavily on your patience with action so measured, so slow it gives drying paint a good name. It plays out in virtual real-time such that waiting for Soderbergh to make a move is as tantalising as it is irritating. There’s a sense of being trapped with in-laws on a wet Sunday when hell suddenly breaks loose. But only for a moment before normality resumes its familiar plod. Bubble is an extraordinary choice for the director of Oceans 11, yet for all its envelope pushing this is no Sex, Lies and Videotape. Like that wet Sunday, you’ll either make a break for the pub or stay the course. Either way, you’ll need a stiff drink afterwards.

// COLIN FRASER