BUBBLE BOY ----------
Jimmy Livingston (Jake Gyllenhaal, "October Sky") was born without an immune system and is cared for in his California home by his bigoted, religious overprotective mom (Swoosie Kurtz, "Citizen Ruth") and silent bullied dad (John Carroll Lynch, "The Next Best Thing"). Beautiful teenage neighbor Chloe (Marley Shelton, "Valentine") becomes friendly with the guitar-playing oddball, but Jimmy's mom-instilled fears keep him from letting her into his germ free bubble environment. When Chloe tells him she's marrying obnoxious rocker Mark (Dave Sheridan, "Ghost World") in Niagara Falls, Jimmy designs a portable bubble and sets off on a cross country journey to declare his love in "Bubble Boy."
Let me state one thing up front - I find political correctness to be an overvalued virtue and I found "Bubble Boy" to be both jaw-droppingly outrageous and funny with some sharply observed societal and religious subtext. I'm amazed this button-pushing movie, sure to be reviled by many, came from a Disney studio (Touchstone).
Mrs. Livingston is one of those religious nuts who teaches her child that other religions are bad, TV only gets 1 mom-approved station, and all fairy tales end with the hero getting out of his bubble and dying. Jimmy grows up to be a wild eyed innocent who dines on cross shaped soy fiber cookies and loves watching "Land of the Lost" with 'the whore next door.'
Adorned with the spiky hair and distancing false arms of "Edward Scissorhands," Gyllenhaal (a much wiser casting choice than the more obvious Brendan Fraser) makes us feel his innocent joy at seeing grass and walking outside in his clear spherical suit. He first meets a churlish, regimented bus stop guy (Zach Galifianakis) who's no help in getting him to his destination, but a busload of 'Bright and Shinies,' an 'Up With People'-like cult all named Todd or Lorraine, pick him up instead. Once Jimmy innocently declares them a cult, he's thrown out of the bus and picked up by a friendly biker (Danny Trejo, "Spy Kids") who brings him to Las Vegas where he becomes a human beach ball at a rock concert.
Meanwhile, back at home hysterical Mrs. Livingston is reading the fake ransom note she's had her hapless husband compose. 'From the Jews? They're gonna want more than $100,000!' she screams, in perhaps the flick's most offensive, but in character, line. Screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio are attempting to do more than shock and offend, though. They're illustrating how a bad environment affects our new generations.
When the Livingstons hit the road in pursuit of Jimmy, they end up hitting the lad off his Vegas-won scooter and he bounces right into a train car filled with Dr. Phreaks' ("Austin Powers'" mini-me, Verne Troyer) travelling sideshow of Flipper Boy (Geoffrey Arend), Li'l Zip (Beetlejuice), Chicken Man (Stephen Spinella) and the Human Sasquatch (Matthew McGrory). Meanwhile, the leader of the Bright and Shinies (Fabio!) tells them their messiah will look just like the bubble boy they discarded. The Bright and Shinies go off in pursuit of the messiah the freaks wish to claim as their savior.
After being rescued by Indian ice cream and curry van man who has a tragic run in with a sacred cow and earning $500 in a Chinese night club mud-wrestling contest with two bikini-clad babes to pay a 97 year old cabbie, Jimmy eventually lands (literally) in Niagara Falls. The romance is just a plot contrivance for the hero's amazing journey and "The Graduate" parody climax is obvious, but the wrap-up does provides a few character revelation chuckles.
Commercial director Blair Hayes does a pretty good job keeping all the elements interwoven, although things get confusing once or twice along the way. "Bubble Boy" is bright, frantic, innocent, occasionally gross, wickedly observant and just plain nuts.
B
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