Hi, Mystery Recapped here. Today, I’m going to
explain an American film called “Bubble Boy.”
Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care!
A boy named Jimmy Livingston is born with no
immunity whatsoever. Even a little germ can kill him, so he has to be kept in isolation. He cannot
touch anything without it being decontaminated. Hence, he will have to live inside a bubble-like
plastic sphere for all his life to survive. His mother, Mrs. Livingston, is overprotective
of her son. Until he was four years old, he wasn’t even allowed to come home. However,
after he turned four, she and Mr. Livingston bring the little boy home in his bubble. His room
too has a huge bubble, so he can walk inside it. The bubble has a pair of protruded hands
that his parents can use to “touch” him. All his toys are decontaminated to be free of the
smallest of the germs and kept inside the bubble. Jimmy has lived in that room ever since. Mrs.
Livingston doesn’t ever want him to leave the bubble, so she ends all the bedtime stories with
the princess dying because they were let free. He is only allowed to watch one tv channel and read
one magazine, because Mrs. Livingston insists they are the only ones ever made. She also uses the
protruded arms to cut his hair and hug her son. Mrs. Livingston is an extreme nationalist,
so she teaches Jimmy only the things she thinks are reasonable and forces her ideas on
him. However, poor Jimmy doesn't know better, so he goes along with it. Everyone in the
city knows about the unique bubble boy, but it doesn’t work to his advantage. Instead,
the neighbour kids wrap themselves in plastic wrap and make fun of Jimmy outside his home,
Mrs. Livingston chases them away frequently.
The only food Jimmy eats is homemade. A
decontamination system has been placed in a plastic tube, where Mrs. Livingston places his
food to kill the germs before Jimmy can fetch it. Jimmy is now sixteen years old. He narrates that
he grew up like any other kid and is happy when he gets an electrical guitar instead of a car.
Until one day, he is at his window when he sees a new girl his age named Chloe moving into his
neighborhood. He has grown to like the girl, but cannot do anything about it. More so, he
doesn’t know anything about love or girls. His mother senses his infatuation, and recites
the story to Jimmy about a boy who died because he touched the “next door whore”. For the next
few years, Jimmy watches Chloe through his windows a lot, she also notices him watching her. He
narrates that he knows something is happening to him, but he doesn’t know what. One morning,
he wakes up with an erection and is petrified. Unknown to the concept, he hits himself
with a bat; he cries and calls his mother. Mrs. Livingston comes in and makes him repeat the
pledge of allegiance until he calms down. Chloe has a group of popular friends who make fun of
Jimmy, calling him the bubble boy. She seems to be defensive towards him. One day, she knocks on the
Livingston’s door and Mr. Livingston lets her in. She sees the system of plastic tubes all
around the house, and is fascinated.
She follows the tube and reaches Jimmy’s room.
Jimmy is surprised and nervous because his mother is the only woman he has talked to. Chloe
talks to him and tells him she like his guitar. Jimmy tries teaching her to play it with the
protruded hands. He starts reciting the pledge of allegiance in the middle of it. Starting
that day, the two hang out together every day. Mrs. Livingston doesn’t like their friendship,
but cannot do anything about it. A montage of them spending time together follows.
She gives him a guinea pig inside a ball for his birthday, and even brings kids inside his
room for Halloween. One night, on her birthday, a drunk Chloe sneaks inside Jimmy’s room through
the windows. She tries getting inside the bubble, claiming she cannot stay away from him anymore.
However, she passes out before she can go in.
The scene cuts to Chloe’s prom night. Her
perverted boyfriend, Mark, comes to pick her up and Jimmy is devastated. Mark offers Jimmy
a cigarette but he doesn’t know what it is.
One night, Jimmy sees Mark and
Chloe make out through his windows. The very next day, Chloe comes into Jimmy’s
room and shows him her engagement ring. Mark had proposed to her to marry him. Their
marriage is this weekend at Niagara falls, and she has come to inform Jimmy. Jimmy is
disappointed but doesn’t show it in his face. She has also brought him a gift, which she keeps
inside his decontamination tube, but Jimmy ignores it. Instead, he gives her the guinea pig back, and
asks her to go away. Chloe leaves with tears in her eyes. Later, Jimmy opens the gift, and sees it
is a snow globe with “I love you” written inside. Surprised, he screams her name and decides to
go to Niagara falls, to stop the wedding.
He works hard to make himself a portable
bubble shield, and is finally successful. Then, he sneaks out of the house without his parents
knowing. Jimmy is happy to be running for the first time, he reaches the bus station and
asks the person there for a bus ticket. However, Jimmy has forgotten to bring any
money. Distressed, he tries to cross the road, when he is hit by a bus. He goes flying
to the ground, but his bubble saves him. The people from the bus come out and offer
to give him a ride. Jimmy happily accepts it, but he gets to know that the people are part
of a religious cult. When he points it out, they angrily throw him out of the bus. The
cult group reaches their destination, where their leader announces a round man inside a globe
to be the savior sent by god. The group realizes that Jimmy was their saviour, and sets off to
look for him to take him out of the “globe”.
Meanwhile, Jimmy meets a biker named Slim. Jimmy
tells him about the love of his life marrying someone else. Slim is impressed, and in turn tells
him of his old girlfriend who he still loves named wildfire. He then offers Jimmy a ride, and both
of them make their way to Niagara Falls.
At home, Mrs. Livingston finds
Jimmy missing and freaks out. Mrs. Livingston and her husband set out to look
for Jimmy, because the police would only do it after twenty-four hours of the disappearance.
Elsewhere, Slim and Jimmy reach Vegas and stop to rest. They have a lot of fun at a casino, but
Jimmy only has two days before the wedding. So, he leaves Slim at the club, steals a scooter,
and runs away in it. After traveling for a while, Jimmy comes across his parent’s car, who
tries to stop him from running. In a hurry, Jimmy gets into an accident. But thankfully,
his bubble bounces him into a running train. He escapes his mother but is now trapped in a
train with talents from a freak show. The freaks tell him about their boss, Dr. Phreak, who keeps
them captured and uses them in his freak show. Jimmy meets Dr. Phreak, who happens to be a dwarf.
He accidentally throws the man to the ground with his bubble, and frees the other freaks. Then
he continues his way to Niagara Falls. But he can hardly use a scooter anymore, so he goes to
a restaurant to ask someone for a ride. There, a bunch of police officers bully a man named
Pushpop. When Jimmy tells them he has no immunity, they assume Jimmy has a contagious disease, and
run away from the place. The restaurant catches on fire in the chaos, and Pushpop offers Jimmy a
ride. He also agrees to take him to Niagara Falls. Somewhere else, Mrs. Livingston reaches Dr.
Phreak, who tells her that Jimmy is going to Niagara Falls. Furious, she calls Chloe and yells
at her for making Jimmy run away. As she talks to Dr. Phreak, the freaks outside steal her car.
Pushpop and Jimmy are on their way, when they hit a cow in the middle of the road. Pushpop is
distressed because, in his religion, cows are a symbol of god, but following his mother’s
word, Jimmy tells him that his religion is false. This offends Pushpop, so he leaves Jimmy on
his own. Jimmy then somehow reaches New York; he asks for a ride from an old man named Pippy, to
which he agrees. Jimmy wakes up the next morning and the man is still driving the car. Jimmy
soon realizes that Pippy is lying lifeless, and the car hits a billboard. Jimmy goes
into a grocery store and calls Chloe.
Mark picks up the phone and tells Jimmy to give
up, because he is about to marry Chloe in an hour. He is now hopeless, so he calls his
mother and asks her to come to pick him. Both his parents drive to him, and get him inside
the car. Mrs Livingston goes to the washroom, when Mr. Livingston asks Jimmy how it felt to be
outside for the first time. The father and son bond. Mr Livingston tells Jimmy to not give up
before trying. Taking his words, Jimmy runs to stop the wedding. Mrs. Livingston sees this, and
follows him in their car. At the same time, the cult group finds Jimmy and follows him as well.
Slim, with his biker friends, comes to rescue Jimmy too. Slim locks eyes with Mrs Livingston,
who happens to be his old love wildfire.
Turns out all of them are driving on a plane’s
runway. A plane takes off and Jimmy gets on board with an old pilot. They fly to Niagara falls,
but the plane crashes, making Jimmy fall into the waterfall. Thankfully, his bubble doesn’t let him
drown. He somehow manages to get out of the water and rushes his way to the wedding. Chloe and Mark
are in the chapel, saying their vows, when Jimmy enters the church, claiming his love for her.
Seeing this is his last chance to persuade Chloe, he puts his life in danger, and tears his
bubble open to kiss her. However, just after it, he falls unconscious. As Chloe tries to wake him
up, Mr. and Mrs. Livingston arrive there too. Mrs. Livingston mourns her son’s death, when Mr.
Livington asks her to tell everyone the truth. Mrs. Livingston embarrassingly reveals, that
Jimmy doesn’t have any condition, and he suddenly wakes up. It turns out that she had lied to him to
keep him away from the evils of the world for all these years. Jimmy is shocked, but forgives his
mother when she claims she did it to protect him. He finally embraces Chloe as everyone claps.
Cut to a few months later. Chloe and Jimmy are getting married. Everyone he met during his
journey is at the wedding. Mr. Livingston, Mrs. Livingston, and Slim are now a throuple.
The movie ends as we see Jimmy and Chloe drive away in a car to their honeymoon.
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