Bubble Boy (2001)
Directed by Blair Hayes
Jimmy is a young man who was born without an immune system and has lived his life within a plastic bubble in his bedroom... who pines for the sweet caresses of girl-next-door Chloe. But when Chloe decides to marry her high school boyfriend, Jimmy – bubble suit and all – treks cross-country to stop her.
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6 films that influenced Bubble Boy
What critics say influenced Bubble Boy
Although the idea for Blair Hayes's Bubble Boy seems initially like a lame offshoot of the "bubble boy" episode of Seinfeld (which itself probably derived from the comically weepy 1976 TV movie The Boy In The Plastic Bubble starring a pre-Saturday Night Fever John Travolta in melodramatic overdrive), it is actually much different.
While no one has lived their entire life in a bubble since David Vetter - whose story inspired the TV movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" with John Travolta - a certain stigma has remained attached to the condition, leading to the now famous/infamous "Bubble Boy" episode of TV's "Seinfeld."
The use of circus freaks is being construed as mean spirited, but these misshapen folk are good and caring (and, yes, funny) characters, much the same way Alfred Hitchcock depicted them in "Saboteur" (1942).
("Patches?" says Slim. "I could use some stinking patches!" in homage to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.")
It's the sort of role that probably would have gone to Brendan Fraser had he not already done "Blast From the Past" and one in which a younger Johnny Depp could have done wonders with (after remembering him doing something somewhat similar in "Edward Scissorhands").
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.
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The style of this film is not unlike Pee-wee's Big Adventure, as it follows a comically innocent weirdo around the country, through all sorts of strange adventures and characters.
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.