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Carol Ann Demaret, the mother of the late David Vetter, has been raising a big stink everywhere she can about the new film Bubble Boy. David, it turns out, had SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) and was the only boy who ever lived in a bubble in real life. While Demaret, who has yet to see the film, is probably just another loudmouth who thinks everything is funny until it hits too close to home (you have to wonder how many times Demaret laughed at something like Forrest Gump), she makes a pretty good point by saying the idea of Disney making a film that trivializes people like her son just isn't funny.
And she ain't that far off. Bubble Boy isn't funny, but it doesn't have much to do with the way the film pokes fun at the SCIDsters. In fact, there are about a half-dozen other groups of people that have more of a right to be pissed off at this dumb coming-of-age movie than Demaret and her cronies (who could be working for Disney and trying to get the crappy film some publicity). India should be pointing their brand-new nukes at us even as we speak. Japan is probably planning another Pearl Harbor (which means another Disney sequel to that film). And I don't know what circus freak show types do to defend themselves, but keep an eye out for it. Boy's coup de grace is, perhaps, the worst Jews-are-cheap joke I've ever heard in a mainstream film (one can only assume the lynching scene was left on the editing room floor). But God forbid somebody make fun of a kid in a bubble.
The film starts with a voiceover from Jimmy Livingston (Jake Gyllenhaal, October Sky), the titular Boy himself, explaining he was born without immunities and can be killed by one single, solitary germ. Jimmy was brought into the world "gift-wrapped from heaven," meaning in a giant plastic bubble in which he's spent his entire life. If that wasn't bad enough, his mother (Swoosie Kurtz, Get Over It) is the overly religious type, crazy enough to make cookies in the shape of crosses AND have photographs of Reagan and Nixon hanging on the wall (maybe that's why Demaret is so pissed off).
Jimmy, who looks a lot like Jason Biggs with a perpetually bad haircut and a Dennis the Menace shirt, falls in love with a busty neighbor girl named Chloe (Marley Shelton, Valentine), who is referred to as "the whore next-door" by his mother. As the years fly by, Jimmy and Chloe grow as close as a boy in a bubble and a girl can possibly get. Eventually, Chloe runs off to marry some loser (Dave Sheridan, MTV's Buzzkill) in Niagara Falls, and Jimmy builds himself a travel-size bubble to follow her, interrupt the wedding (a la The Graduate) and win her heart.
Then Boy becomes one big, offensive road trip. Or is it a fish-out-of-bubble story? All I know is the least offensive laughs come courtesy of a Fabio-led Up With People kind of group called Bright and Shiny (didn't The Jesus Lizard's David Yow used to get arrested for doing something with a similar name?). The writing (from debut scribes Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio) is full of non-comedic gems, like when Jimmy meets a biker (Danny Trejo, Spy Kids), who inquires about his strange look. "I'm some kind of bubble boy," Jimmy replies, at which point the biker asks, "How do you take a dump in there?" Certainly a valid question, but it goes unanswered.
I think my favorite part of Boy was when Jimmy was supposed to be just outside Niagara Falls, even though the scene was clearly filmed in the middle of a desert in Nevada (complete with giant mountains in the background). Director Blair Hayes, who made the funny Austin Powers 2 commercials that spoofed The Phantom Menace, carefully places a shelf full of Niagara Spray Starch in one of the shots, like that's somehow going make anyone think Jimmy isn't actually in the goddamn desert.
There are a few moments that could have been funny but were ruined in some way or another - like Jimmy's first boner, which started out cute, but ended up creepy. Actually, "creepy" is a pretty good word to describe Boy. It doesn't make you laugh and it doesn't make you cry. It just makes you feel icky.
1:30 - PG-13 for language and crude sexual humor
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