Writer/director Evan Twohy has thought about his debut feature “Bubble and Squeal” even before it made any sense to him. The ridiculous comedy, which follows a couple who experience 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. Stop by IndieWire Studio presented by Dropbox by 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Twohy and his cast, who appear Dave FrancoHimesh Patel and Sarah Goldberg, broke down what makes “Bubble & Squeak” so unique and how they grounded the weirdness that permeates the film.
“It’s this thing that’s inherently absurd,” Twohy said of the story, “and I think there’s this process 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 embrace keeping things in it that didn’t really are logical – but then also draw in the melancholy and wisdom that you get as you grow older.”
As the husband and wife duo of the film, Patel and Goldberg knew their dynamic was key to making the film work, but had limited time to establish it before shooting in Estonia. But when they met before production, they quickly discovered they were already in sync after reading the script.
“We exchanged a few emails, so when we sat 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,” Patel said , “and the most beautiful thing about it was that we realized very quickly that we were on the same page in a lot of ways, in terms of the tone of everything.”
Goldberg added, “The lyrics are so specific and really funny and never so slightly elevated, but also quite grounded. And so there’s a real rhythm to the language that I think we both tapped into pretty quickly and kind of formed a little double act with and I felt it was important to stay true to that rhythm, even though they’re very different and part of this movie is about love and how you can love someone, but that person might not be someone you’re going to grow up with, or someone which may not be correct for each other, or maybe love is 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 bring 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 when he discovered he could make it his own, he went all out.
“On the side, I think it was like a 55-year-old grizzled Australian,” Franco said of reading his part for the first time. “I was like, ‘Okay and I really love the role and I don’t know if I can do this like that, but I think I see a way into this.'” My introduction is that I’m a guy who meets them in the woods and I 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 distribution in the United States.
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