![]() This is a star-making performance: It's impossible not to respond to Gyllenhaal's sweetness, wide eyes and dazzling smile, or to imagine anyone whose looks or personality would be more perfectly suited to the role. Once he leaves home in pursuit of love and experience, Jimmy could be an alien visiting Earth for the first time: Everything is new to him, wondrous and strange. Gyllenhaal is fabulous as Jimmy, a charmed innocent who grew up viewing the world from a distance and inspires people with his purity and lack of cynicism. ![]() Compared with "There's Something About Mary," which pushed the limits of taste by placing mentally and physically disabled characters in extreme comic situations, the humor in "Bubble Boy" is innocuous. Vetter's story inspired "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," a 1976 TV movie that starred John Travolta and didn't dare to play the situation for laughs.ĭemaret hasn't seen "Bubble Boy," but if she did, she would discover a goofy, wildly imaginative fantasy that never mocks Jimmy Livingston but celebrates him as a hero who transcends his disability in the quest for love. Especially angry is Carol Ann Demaret, the mother of David Vetter, a 12- year-old Texas boy who suffered from a genetic deficiency similar to Jimmy Livingston's and died in 1984 after living in a protective, germ-free bubble. Despite its wacky but gentle nature and Gyllenhaal's winning performance, "Bubble Boy" has incurred the anger of the Immune Deficiency Foundation, a charity that wants moviegoers to boycott the movie. Along the way he encounters circus freaks, nasty bikers, a Hindi ice cream vendor and a religious cult.īad taste? Some think so. Smitten with the girl next door, Chloe (Marley Shelton), he builds himself a portable bubble suit, runs away from home and hitchhikes across the country to stop her wedding in Niagara Falls. Deprived of immunities,Ĭan't have any contact with the outside world or he'll perish.īut Jimmy, played by the hugely appealing Jake Gyllenhaal, is nothing but resourceful. "Bubble Boy," one of this summer's sweetest surprises, is the story of a 17-year-old boy who's spent his life in a plastic bubble. Today, infants born without immunity to disease undergo the transplant procedure at a young age, so they don't have to live the rest of their lives in a bubble.(Rated PG-13. FYI, in case you wondered, the original bubble boy, David, died at the age of 13 back in 1984 after an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant. This is a perfect modern day farce if you are looking for a light and uplifting comedy at the rental store. The movie is sanitized for younger viewers, but gives a wink and a nod to more mature viewers. I have to give the writers an A+ for imagination. The dialogue and the jokes can be lame sometimes, but the humor really comes from the absurdity of the characters and the improbable situations the main character runs into. He asks, "What if Neil Armstrong flew to the moon, but never set foot on it?" This movie is about taking chances.breaking out of our so-called bubbles, and experiencing life.not just sitting around watching it pass us by. It is best expressed by Jimmy's dad who is really the only normal character, and only speaks once in the entire movie. There is an important lesson can be learned from this movie. That bubble plastic must be some tough stuff. Just when you think it can't get any more crazy, it does. ![]() Just when you think Jimmy is finally on his way to Niagara Falls, and the movie is going to start dragging, BAM! The ice cream truck hits a cow! After mud wrestling two women while Japanese male spectators cheer him on, Jimmy is back on his way. You've watched enough movies like this to know how it is going to end, but, as always, it's the journey that Bubble Boy takes to get there that makes this movie interesting and redeeming. OK, it is somewhat of an overused plot: Boy falls in love with girl Girl gets engaged to someone else Boy interrupts the wedding to get the girl back. To my surprise, Bubble Boy has a fast-moving plot. I was fully expecting this film to be along the lines of "Wayne's World" or "A Night at the Roxbury." The characters are hilarious and exaggerated, but the non-existent plot drags on like a 10 minute skit that has gone 80 minutes too long. Hammer on the soundtrack, and you've got yourself a movie that no Gen-X'er can resist. Write up an adventurous plot and throw in a cameo by Fabio and some M. You've got the perfect character.an odd teenage boy that lives in a bubble. ![]() Naturally, when I saw the trailer for this movie, I asked myself, "Hey, whatever happened to that boy that lived in a bubble?" I knew I had to watch this to satisfy my curiosity. I distinctly remember sitting in elementary school and reading about the boy who lived in a bubble in my Weekly Reader. ![]()
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