SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Dreadfully Boring

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

RELEASED TO TV IN 1976 and directed by Randal Kleiser, "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" is a youth drama inspired by the true-life stories of David Vetter and Ted DeVita, both of whom lacked effective immune systems. John Travolta plays Tod Lubitch, a teen born with immune deficiencies in Southern Cal while Glynnis O'Connor is the girl next door with whom he slowly develops a relationship and inspires him to crave freedom from his germ-free 'prison.' Robert Reed & Diana Hyland are on hand as his parents.The opening act is relatively dull, but it's necessary because it establishes Tod's situation. Thankfully, the story perks up with the star power of Travolta and O'Connor. The former was 21 during shooting and is quite good as the protagonist while O'Connor is winsome as ever. She was almost 20 during filming and has a bikini sequence for those interested.At its heart, this is a coming-of-age movie but with a unique twist (the bubble boy). There are several well-done high school sequences, like the football field scene where the kids sneak away to smoke pot. Unrealistic? Not at all.The best part is the ending where we share in Tod's joy and sense of wonder at the most simplest things that normal people take for granted. I can relate because when I was his age I fell off a cliff and ended up in traction and a body cast for four months. While in the cast, I was laid-up at home on a lake, just like in the movie. When the cast was removed I walked with crutches to the woods & lake with sheer delight.The real-life bubble boys David Vetter and Ted DeVita were still alive when the movie was released. The former died in 1984 at the age of 12 & a half while the latter died in 1980 at the age of 18.THE FILM RUNS 1 hour, 36 minutes and was shot in Malibu Lake and Century City, California. WRITERS: Douglas Day Stewart and Joe Morgenstern.GRADE: B

Remenbering my teenagers years when this movie aired for first time in Brazil by Globo TV in 1978....based in real facts about the boy who was born without immune system, so the doctor developed a bubble added with device to supply sterile air to secure him against bacteria....so he lives inside the bubble since then....the movie made a huge success at this time even though it a low budge and lousy work...also catapulted John Travolta's career before Staying Alive...unfortunately the DVD released here has a poor image needing a complete restoration, it's a crying shame that so important movie didn't has it before to sell... but even so brings me good memories from this time!!!Resume: First watch: 1978 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6

"The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" was a made for TV movie which gave John Travolta a chance to do something beyond his lunk-head character on "Welcome Back Kotter"...and just before he shot to super-stardom with "Saturday Night Fever". He plays a young man who was born without an immune system and the show details his difficulties dealing with having a plastic wall always between himself and the outside world. The problem becomes MUCH worse when he falls in love with the girl next door and he realizes he probably will never be able to touch her.The story is based very broadly on a real case. Travolta is decent in the role and the film is a decent family movie, though the ending is a bit bizarre as it leaves you on such a cliffhanger. I liked it as lot as a kid--seen now, it just seems okay. Generally enjoyable and well written but the ending is a letdown...at least for me.

1976's "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" has gained legendary status in the careers of both John Travolta and Glynnis O'Connor, for it is due to their performances, and the genuine anguish in its depiction of budding adolescent love, that this TV-movie still endures beyond what all of the naysayers would have you believe. The early scenes with the very young Tod do tend to be overtly cloying, but it immediately establishes the young Gina's attitude toward her new neighbor, at one point actually calling him a 'monster.' As the years pass, she really only sees him once a year on his birthday, the only girl in attendance, now simply looking at him as a curiosity. Once the exposition concludes, the film can take its time with their relationship, how he's always watching her from his expansive pad, isolated from any germs that could easily spell death for him. It really is a marvelous script, Glynnis O'Connor's Gina at first willing to humiliate Tod just to impress her friends (among them Kelly Ward, Vernee Watson, and P. J. Soles), but gradually coming to realize how much he has idolized her, which both flatters her and scares her ("Tod, what are you doing to me?"). Yes, it may be carefully calculated, even contrived, but when the actors deliver, it has the desired effect. As for the ending that so many dislike, how could they conclude it any other way? SPOILER AHEAD- As Paul Williams sings "What Would They Say" (uncredited in the film itself), Tod chooses to be free to pursue his only love, leaving behind the dedicated parents responsible for his well-being, still asleep and unaware, equal parts heart warming and tragic, just like the angst of teenage love. No matter how old we get, we never forget that first love, or the obstacles that needed to be overcome, which Williams beautifully renders as Gina rides away with Tod at her back, toward a future unknown. What a delicate balance that couldn't be bettered, and it remains difficult to watch to this day without tearing up. Robert Reed, just as in THE BRADY BUNCH, is a warm and loving father, and this film, along with ROOTS, reignited his career back toward drama. Diana Hyland will always be remembered as John Travolta's first true love, tragically dead of cancer less than five months after this broadcast. The natural smile, fresh wholesomeness (even in a revealing bikini), a sweet girl next door quality that every boy fell in love with- the 19 year old Glynnis O'Connor was a huge cult figure at the time, on a par with Maureen McCormick, Jodie Foster, Tatum O'Neal, or Kristy McNichol, but appears to be criminally forgotten nowadays; she would continue to score impressively in films such as "California Dreaming" and "Those Lips, Those Eyes." Only months away from "Saturday Night Fever," John Travolta's movie career consisted of a bit in "The Devil's Rain" and a supporting villain in the just completed "Carrie," his dramatic capabilities as yet untested, so this sensitive but not saccharine portrayal was very real and precise (how about the reference to masturbation with fellow inmate John Friedrich, when they easily could have shied away from an honest depiction). This movie's cult should continue to grow, in spite of the dated 70s fashions, despite the raspberries from numerous hipsters, simply because the heart never stops yearning and no one forgets their first love.