BUBBLE BOY

Adventure doesn’t knock at the door of Jimmy Livingston (Jake Gyllenhaal) too often: his lack of an immune system means he has to live in a sterile plastic bubble. His overbearing mother (Swoosie Kurtz) is perfectly content to shelter him from the big bad world, but Chloe (Marley Shelton), the unwholesome girl next door, helps Jimmy see beyond his bubble. When Chloe decides to marry tough guy Mark (Dave Sheridan) in Niagara Falls, Jimmy travels cross-country in a bubble suit to break up the wedding and confess his love for her.

Reminiscent of the interweaving of unlikely events in Gérard Oury’s Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob, Blair Hayes’s debut lm has Jimmy encountering the most improbable of circumstances . Not only must he fend off cult followers who believe he is the messiah, he has to mud-wrestle with bimbos in an Asian men’s club, hitch a ride in an ice-cream-and-curry truck, and avoid capture by a traveling freak show. Undaunted by his physical restraints, Gyllenhaal hilariously captures the essence of geekdom, and he wears the awkward bubble suit with style. Bubble Boy is as inane and upbeat as comedies get, for better or for worse.

— Gary Susman