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General Major 
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DISABILITY |
General
Immune Deficiency |
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CAST |
Jake Gyllenhaal
Swoosie Kurtz
Marley Shelton |
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NOTES |
A boy,
Jimmy, is born with no immune system. And his religious mum says he
must be "safe from that filthy, evil world" will never have to go out
again. So he's stuck at home with his mother as his teacher and
everything else. His father at this point appears hardly to be
involved with his upbringing. The film starts with some nice satirical
touches. We see how he is fed but not what he does about 'waste
products'
Mum is still reading fairy tales to him when he's a teenager. Then he
suddenly grows up when he sees his gorgeous next door neighbour,
Chloe.
She's sympathetic towards him and a relationship develops but she has
a boyfriend and soon leaves for Niagara Falls to get married. He
creates a 'portable' bubble suit so he can run after her.
At this point the film begins to get really silly. Jimmy gets hit by a
bus (protected by his suit) and is taken for a while under the wing of
a bunch of religious nutters. He meets an assortment of oddballs. "How
do you take a dump in that thing?" asks the biker but gets no answer.
On a rail car he meets a travelling freak show which includes
"Mini-Me" and Siamese twins joined at the head. They're also man and
woman which is impossible, all Siamese twins are of the same sex. As a
freak himself he's invited to join them.
There follow distractions like the Sikh who sells curry and ice cream
(in reality nearly all Indian restaurants are run by Bangladeshis who
are Moslem). An insight in Indian culture is the distress caused to
the Sikh when he knocks down a cow. And thrown in for fun is a bit of
mud wrestling. Jimmy gets to the church on time and interrupts Chloe's
wedding and in a dramatic finale he gets out of his suit in a
sacrifice for love of her. But his father who have been in pursuit
with his mother tells him his condition has been a fraud perpetrated
by his mother. So it's a happy ending not morbid death throes. |
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Notes
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