Bubble Boy

Jake Gyllenhaal, the young star of the critically well-received October Sky (1999), follows up that film with this offbeat comedy. Gyllenhaal stars as Jimmy Livingston, a teenager with an immune system deficiency who has spent his entire life living in a plastic bubble under the doting, overprotective care of his mother (Swoosie Kurtz). Jimmy is in love with his next-door neighbor Chloe (Marley Shelton), so when he learns that she has left for Niagara Falls in order to be married, he's devastated. He quickly assembles a portable "bubble suit" and sets out on a 2,755.8-mile odyssey in order to stop her and proclaim his affection. Along the way, Jimmy experiences a number of adventures, including encounters with freaks, bikers, rock stars, and a cult. Bubble Boy is a comic riff on the classic TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), which starred a young John Travolta. — Karl Williams