CineBad!!!

This is the story of Todd Lubitch (Travolta,) the Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Why is he in the bubble? Because he was born with no immune system. That’s right, even a simple case of the sniffles could cause Todd to kick the bucket at any moment. Our story opens as Mr. and Mrs. Lubitch discover that they’re about to have a baby. Mrs. Lubitch is mightily upset, since she lost her last child to the same affliction that’s about to afflict Todd. Todd’s Dad, (Robert Reed, aka Mr. Brady) is totally into having this kid, however. He tells his wife over and over again that everything’s going to be OK. Boy, is he ever wrong! Then, cut to the hospital; the Lubitches receive the bad news. Todd’s already in the Bubble, so there’s a pathos-laden scene of Mrs. Lubitch cradling her baby with giant rubber gauntlets.

OK, so maybe I’m no immunologist, but this entire movie seems pretty whacked to me. First of all, none of the doctors seem to have any idea exactly what’s wrong with Todd. Nobody seems to know when or if he’ll ever get out of the bubble. Also, throughout the movie, the doctors keep saying that Todd’s body “has built up some immunities on its own,” however, since Todd’s never been exposed to a single virus or bacteria in his life, I don’t really see how this could happen. But whatever. Todd’s main responsibility in life is to look cute and pathetic, not to fight off pathogens.

In classic made-for-TV style, this movie keeps threatening to have a plot, but then doesn’t. We follow Todd as he faces such crises as choking on a loose button from his teddy bear (watch the movie to see how well a four year old actor can play a choking scene,) having a horse jump over his porta-bubble, and having his space suit malfunction, all with tremendously anti-climactic results. I kept waiting for the tear-filled moment when Todd would be rushed to the hospital, and speeches would be made, and True Feelings revealed, and all that, but it didn’t happen. Irwin Allen should have made this film.

Ah, yes, the Space Suit. You see, as Todd becomes a teenager, he eventually takes classes at the High School via closed-circuit TV. But then someone invents a burnt-orange space suit that enables Todd to walk about at will, causing the other kids to treat him like a freak. There’s even a cute make-out scene in the back of his parent’s van, when his girlfriend / next-door-neighbor Gena (O’Connor) kisses him through his Plexiglas visor.

Throughout all of this, Todd acts like a complete jerk towards everybody. He bosses his parents around, treats his nurse like a slave, and barks orders at people through an intercom. Hey, I guess he has poor social skills! At one point, he goes to the hospital for a few weeks and his roommate at the “Laminar Air Flow Center” is a kid whose immune system is shot due to chemotherapy. They commiserate about not being able to go out with girls, etc. Then they talk about masturbation. Eeeeeew. While at High School, Todd and his friends sneak off to the football field to smoke pot. Since Todd can’t breath anything but purified air, he has to tell his friends how he can achieve out-of-body states through meditation, to make up for the fact that he’s not stoned. Then he goes off about how he’s really from a planet called “Themopolis,” here on an exchange program. Poor Todd! Maybe he was just born with a bad script!

Eventually, however, Todd falls in love with the girl next door, and after a few scenes of her being alternately nice and mean to him, she falls in love with him, too. What are they going to do? Gena’s about to go to Art School in New York, whereas Todd will forever be stuck in his Plastic Bubble. Todd again asks his doctor if he’ll ever be able to leave, but his doctor just shrugs. The doctor doesn’t even know if Todd could leave the bubble right now. He could be fine, or else… so Todd is faced with a dilemma. Should he sneak out of the bubble and take his chances with love / germs, or should he stay in the bubble and play with his pet germ-free mouse? (I especially love the hamster-trail-within-bubble metaphor!) I won’t spoil the surprise ending for you, but at least this movie eventually developed some kind of plot, even if it was during the last five minutes.

Then there’s the Love Theme from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, which goes, Leave us alone / We live in the country / We’ll make it just fine / Happy in a one-room shack / And we won’t look back… Maybe it’s just me, but Todd wasn’t happy in his one-room shack… but then again most of this movie left me slightly mystified. PS: Look for Vernee Watson-Johnson as “Gwen,” who played Philip Michael Thomas’ wife in Death Drug.