Bubble Boy

Dir: Blair Hayes

2001

**

Blair Hayes's 2001 adventure comedy Bubble Boy is a somewhat altered remake of 1976's made-for-TV musical The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, starring John Travolta. Sadly, Hayes' film isn't a musical but it's certainly a more colourful affair. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jimmy Livingston, a boy born without an immune system who could be killed by the smallest of germs. Jimmy is placed in a germ free container at birth and was then moved into a huge bubble in his parents’ home at the age of four. Jimmy is protected from germs by the bubble and from anything else that might hurt him by his strictly religious mother. When Jimmy reaches the age of seventeen a beautiful young girl called Chloe moves in the house next door and the two become friends. After a few years, Jimmy is met with the horror that Chloe has a boyfriend and after she announces she is getting married to him the following week on the other side of the country, Jimmy decides to risk everything by going outside, traveling hundreds of miles to stop the wedding. Cue a mad-cap road-trip featuring Danny Trejo leading a band of bikers, Zach Galifianakis as a disgruntled bus vendor, a coach full of enthusiastic cult followers, a circus freak show (featuring Verne Troyer) and a traveling ice cream/curry salesman (played by Brian George). Gyllenhaal's enthusiastic, lovelorn innocents keeps the film going somewhat but while the various different characters add spice to the film, it also get very stupid very fast. It's also pretty offensive in places, although I'm sure this wasn't the intention but the racial stereotypes come thick and fast and go a few steps too far, for no good reason at all. The conclusion is predictable, unimaginative and a bit of a slap in the face. It started out so well and then went rapidly downhill in quality towards the end, it's really no surprise Hayes has struggled to make anything since, although his direction is actually rather good.