Review: Jumbo
This review is part of our remote coverage of the 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.
Roger Ebert once said that “movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” Through cinema and familiar storytelling, we can find ourselves understanding other people’s unique perspectives, even those we never give second thought to as anything but a tabloid headline or the punchline to some water cooler joke.
In terms of story beats, Zoé Wittock’s Jumbo is one of those familiar stories. After all, it’s a romance, and we have a frequently used formula that pays off like a slot machine every time: Girl meets her love interest. They flirt, slowly fall madly in love, and have sex. Other people don’t understand their love. Conflict develops, and the plot ensues from there. Tale as old as time.
Of course, the kicker here is that the titular character and love interest is a big old pendulum ride at the amusement park where our main character, Jeanne, works.
Objectophilia is probably one of the more taboo and confusing fetishes to most people, which, I suppose, makes it the perfect subject to really push the limits of both the traditional romantic movie structure and Ebert’s cinematic philosophy.
And, for the most part, it proves that both concepts still hold a lot of water. Taking such a traditional route with this tale helps ground something most people simply cannot fathom and reframes it in a recognizable way that allows us to begin to comprehend how something like this could possibly happen. We do feel for Jeanne. Her relationship and its troubles are genuinely stirring. And yes, there’s also moments where we feel the predictable pity for the otherness that her eccentricities create, but they’re never the focus. Her romance with Jumbo is never treated as freakish. It’s not played up to intentionally bother the audience. It just is, and whether or not we accept or reject Jeanne is entirely up to the predilections we bring with us into the film.
A lot of credit for that goes to the open and vulnerable performance being given by Noémie Merlant. Merlant’s challenge is a unique one. She has to not only play Jeanne, a complicated and bizarre character, with humanity and compassion, but to also carry the development of a relationship by herself. After all, her scene partner who cannot talk or respond or...do much of anything other than flash colors and spin around in a nauseating fashion. Despite the daunting challenges, it works wonderfully. Jeanne and her aversion to a more normal relationship make sense, especially with the context of her relationship with her mother, Margarette (Emmanuelle Barcot). Margarette has no boundaries with her daughter regarding sex, and it creates the same discomfort in both the audience and Jeanne. Why on earth Jeanne is specifically pulled to this spinning ride may escape comprehension for many viewers, but why she shies away from sleeping with other people makes perfect sense.
The relationship between mother and daughter is also what turns Jumbo into something of a queer story. After all, Jeanne has to come out to her mother about her love for Jumbo, and that love is what creates the friction and narrative drive for the rest of the film. It’s a much different coming out story than many, yes, but we still end up with the happy ending of one. There’s acceptance and love, even when there may never be understanding.
But this is where the film does stutter along a bit. The opening where we see the romance begin and develop is all really lovely and exciting. Even though it may be slightly formulaic, it’s with stuff we’ve never seen before, and there are just enough surprises to be genuinely thrilling. After all, who would go into this movie expecting that Jumbo actually communicates back to Jeanne? Or the direction the sex scene takes? (Or, for that matter, the fact that there is a sex scene…) But then, one of the last really surprising moments is that Jeanne tells her mother about this at all. Then from there, unfortunately, the surprises stop, and things start to drag as we have to watch everything fall together exactly as expected.
However, does that change how wonderfully unique and worthwhile of a cinematic experience this is? Not at all. Jumbo is a fascinating exercise in generating the empathy of which Ebert spoke. It’s an empathy most of us have never felt before, and it’s a wonderful reminder that every person has a story and context that drives their actions, even if those are actions that the rest of us struggle to get behind.
