Is a gay-life movie not a “gay film” when it deals with a much larger history, and the most exciting person is the gay men's female friend?
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“The Bubble”
Rating: Unrated
When: Opens tomorrow
 ½
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“The Bubble” is an arresting curiosity from Israel, spikey with agenda. Eytan Fox made it, having previously dealt with homosexuality in the macho Israeli Army in “Yossi & Jagger.” Most of this one occurs in a swing-loose nabe of Tel Aviv, the occupants often feeling like a bubble adrift from the harsh winds and blowback of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Fat chance of that. The movie opens with a pathetic death, later has a suicide bombing. But mostly it concerns a gay cafe owner (Alon Friedmann) whose parents frown upon gays, and the new men in his life, and a soldier with pacifist urges (engaging Ohad Knoller) and the soldier's new, Palestinian lover (subtle Yousef “Joe” Sweid).
They're a hip bunch, due to the gay scene but also Lulu (Daniella Wircer), an expansively feminist and hetero spark of both parties and politics. When she pretends to be a French reporter she has the sauce for it, even earning a reference to “Jules et Jim.”
Fox shot the candid sex so it is more emotionally grounded than the flesh tangles of standard gay movies. He doesn't voyeurize, he's in there living. With humanly detailed actors, he provides a vital sense of Tel Aviv as a cornered outpost of European values, yet also gives decent attention to the more traditional (and fanatical) Palestinians.
Despite such attributes, “The Bubble” is rather airblown. The young militants for peace seem awfully naive, allowing a pro-peace rave to become simply a juiced beach dance. Crazily, though the Palestinian man is in Israel covertly, and remains deeply in the closet at home on the West Bank, he lets his new Israeli friends put his image on display in a provocative poster.
Fox and co-writer Gal Uchovsky go for broke – and break. The ending requires a key character's character to collapse tragically, against all the layered, personal evidence of the story. Sadly “The Bubble” floats away from Tel Aviv, not to the sea but a pitiful void.
A Strand release. Director: Eytan Fox. Writers: Eytan Fox, Gal Uchovsky. Cast: Ohad Knoller, Yousef “Joe” Sweid, Daniella Wircer, Alon Friedmann, Zohar Liba. Running time: 1 hr., 53 min.
