365 Films A Year!

Joe Versus the Volcano is a massively underappreciated film. I know, I know, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail are supposedly the Nora Ephron/Meg Ryan trilogy. But I’d rather focus on the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan trilogy and I’ll take Joe over any of them, anyway.

The big difference between Joe and the other three is that Hanks’ character in Joe actually has to undergo change. The others are really just about the love story and while that works for me in Mail, it leaves me cold in the other two. In Joe Versus the Volcano, Hanks plays Joe Banks, an office worker with terrible health problems. He feels sick all the time and his life is being drained of all energy. When a doctor tells him he is dying of an incurable disease, he agrees to a deal with Millionaire Samuel Graynamore to jump into a volcano to appease island natives and win Graynamore a lucarative contract. Of course, Joe gets to go out in style and he freely spends Graynamore’s money prepping for the trip. Eventually, he meets Graynamore’s daughter Patricia (the third of Meg Ryan’s three parts) and together they make it to the island and meet their fate together.

But the key is not the falling in love part. It’s the idea that taking command of one’s life is the key to happiness. Early in Joe’s travels, he hires a limo to take him around the city. The driver, Marshall (Ossie Davis), helps him choose his clothes, which he says are the keys to identifying a man. But at that point, Joe doesn’t really know who he is and it is Marshall’s guidance that first moves him down the road to enlightenment, through his clothing purchases.

Hanks is great as Joe. He portrays the sad, desperate, constantly ill Joe with such realism that when he comes out of his shell it’s a true revelation. This was still early in his career and he hadn’t shown this much depth too much before. And the supporting cast is great, too. Work by Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Abe Vigoda, Dan Hedaya and even a very early film appearance by Nathan Lane all serve to further the reality of the story.

But the real star turn is from Meg Ryan. Her first character is DeDe, Joe’s co-worker at his life force-sucking job. She’s a gum-chewing semi-ditz who likes Joe, but isn’t able to cope with the changes he is undergoing. Next, she plays Angelica Graynamore, Patricia’s shallow sister whose response to any comment with meaning is a deadpan “I have no response to that.” Patricia is the most realistic of Ryan’s characters, so naturally is the most important and she manages to instill her with enough spine to believe she’s the rebellious daughter of a millionaire without allowing her to fall into just being a cliche.

Honestly, I think the thing that hurts the reputation of Joe versus the Volcano the most is the title. It sounds so silly, people expect it to be and even if they watch it, project that image onto the film. But it has more to it than its silly title and wacky setup. It has a real story to tell, not just the story of two people falling in love.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 1:56 pm and is filed under 1990, Comedy, Drama, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.