| BUBBLE BOY |
 2001 - USADirector: Blair Hayes - Reviewed by Linda
Cutie Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jimmy Livingston, a boy "with no immunities" who has been raised in a plastic germ-free room by overprotective parents, including his (of course) ultra-Christian, ultra-over-protective mom (Swoosie Kurtz, fabulously straight-faced as always). As he blossoms into a young man, Jimmy falls for the neighbor girl Chloe (Marley Shelton, a dead ringer for Heather Graham). But with a plastic curtain between them, things can only go so far, so Chloe tells Jimmy she is getting married to another man in three days in Niagra Falls. Before you can say, "C'mon Jimmy! Tell her you love her!" he decides he must break free from his plastic cell and travel across the country to stop her wedding. Now, the protective bubble-boy suit that Jimmy concocts is really something to behold. It is like a round clear hamster ball with protruding legs and two rubber flacid arms dangling off the front. The suit is funny in itself, but to turn a character into pretty much a bouncing ball is ripe for slapstick comedy. At one point, our bubble boy hero gets hit by a school bus with a startling thud, sending him sailing off into the distance, boucing towards the horizon. I admit I laughed til I cried. If it weren't bad enough to seemingly mock those who might be bubble-people in real life (I'm not gonna go there), Bubble Boy basically takes our hero on a cross-country road trip, where of course he encounters all sorts of wacky characters and situations, a la Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (the greatest road movie EVER, by the way). There are bikers, an Indian man who drives an ice-cream-and-curry truck, mud wrestlers, religious freaks, and actual freaks (including Vern Troyer [Austin Powers' Mini-Me!] and giant Matthew McGrory [from Big Fish]). But, you see, despite the stereotypes, Bubble Boy says, people shouldn't be judged or teased for simply being who they are (yay! goes the feel-good meter!). Bubble Boy came out during a very unfunny time in our nation's history (it wimpered out of the theaters in September 2001). What didn't make you laugh then, would just make you cry. But now that we've had some distance from those unfortunate times, we can dig around the video stores to find the films that we missed or skipped. Because, you know what? Bubble Boy ain't half bad. And now that Jake Gyllenhaal is becoming all that and a bag of chips, this very silly and actually pretty funny flick may finally find an audience. |
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You know, sometimes you have to check your political correctness at the door, and enjoy a
ridiculous comedy for what it is. True, several of the characters and caricatures in Bubble Boy made me cringe, but at the same time all groups, religions, and ethnicities are fair game to the screenwriters, so the poking and prodding is equal opportunity all-round. But ultimately Bubble Boy has a sweet heart at the center, and I have to admit it made me guffaw several times.
