My last review of 'Joe Versus The Volcano' was somehow unsatisfying. It's a phenomenally difficult movie to talk about, not only because of its legend as a massive box office failure but also because it is a widely misunderstood film. This is probably because the movie misunderstands itself, just as we get confused as to the nature of the film. Despite all that, I have the quaintest kind of love for 'Joe' and its progress from a bleak and grimy grey beginning through the normally toned mid-section of discovery to the bright and vivid island landscape of deliverance and acceptance. The whole film is a metaphor, and should be viewed as one instead of a narrative. People get hung up on narratives, myself included, but sometimes they get in the way of things. That doesn't mean you just eliminate the story completely though, modern movies!
So once again we begin with a story: Former firefighter Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) is living a bleak life in a grimy grey factory in a grimy grey industrial world and going slowly mad from hypochondria and his own fear. One day he is diagnosed with a terminal 'brain cloud' and recruited by a billionaire to jump into a volcano and appease some natives looking for a good mineral rights deal. He does it in exchange for a marvelous journey which will finish out his days in wealthy leisure and provide some closure to it all. The beginning, the journey, and the destination comprise three distinct acts in the film, and Meg Ryan plays three different love interests in succession at her cutest. This is the first Hanks/Ryan movie after all and definitely my favourite. Her characters seem to symbolize Joe's temperament in each phase of the film, down the long and crooked road of destiny.
A viewer's reception for 'Joe' really depends on the level to which you adhere to the modern movie formula of 'laughs and explosions mixed to exact ratios', and 'Joe Versus The Volcano' certainly isn't one of those. It's a spiritual journey writ large but made imperfectly, with some extremely odd choices and some extremely well done moments. One of my favourite moments in all of film is in this movie, where Meg Ryan's final character Patricia shows him to his cabin on her yacht the Tweedle Dee and just talks to him. The words 'soulsick' will never be the same again, as now they really encompass what it feels like to be out of place, out of time, and out of love with yourself. She's soul sick, having compromised a promise to herself in order to gain the boat, and he's slowly recovering as his mistakes and fears ebb away with the tides. And before you start to think that this is a sad movie, it really isn't, and of course all ends well utterly implausibly.
The ending to such a movie as 'Joe' is always going to be difficult. If he jumps into the movie and dies then it's a triumph of the human spirit but a downer, and if he and Patricia jump in and get blown out to sea instead, where she reveals the possible fraud behind his diagnosis, then it's a potential letdown. They chose the latter and I don't mind that choice but some do. Letdowns aren't the worst things in the world. On to other things, the music is well placed, chosen and suited to the film being unpretentious and eclectic. The visuals are often sumptuous and also often bizarre, and the thematic symbol of the long and crooked road permeates the whole movie perfectly. The only problem is that the beginning is so grey and in parts unpleasant as to make it too hard to watch and derail the movie, while the end is similarly so silly as to minorly ruin the momentum of what came before. The structure arguably defeats the purpose. Arguably.
'Joe Versus The Volcano': A metaphor or a fairy tale or a spiritual journey? A work of sweet madness or of mad sweetness? A starry debut for Hanks/Ryan or a miserable flop? At the end of the day, only you can answer. Have fun, folks.
O.
PS That was much more satisfying than the first go-around.
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