Jumbo. (15.)
Directed by Zoe Wittock.
Starring Noemie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, Bastien Bouillon. Subtitled. In cinemas. 93 mins.
People are so judgemental about sexual fetishes when mostly they are just a matter of dumb luck. It's just fate that averted you walking into a panto season dressing room and witnessing Barbara Windsor peeing in a bucket while Christopher Biggins sat watching on in cackling merriment. Just capricious destiny, but that would've been me condemned to a lifetime of doomed attempts to slyly try to manoeuvre gullible East End blondes into picture-perfect replications. (I'd probably skip the Biggins part though.)
Through no fault of her own shy introverted Belgium teen, Jeanne (Merlant) has developed into a kind of objectaphiliac Amelie. Working as a cleaner at the funfair over the summer and is sexually attracted to one of the rides, the eponymous Jumbo. And before you scoff, it's based on a true story.
The film treats the topic with great sensitivity but a little timidity. Merlant's performance does wonders making Jeanne's fragile attempts to make emotional connections seem credible and poignant but writer/director Wittock's treatment neglects to build enough of a support system around it. Like its central character, the film doesn't have a wide circle of friends. She lives with her blowsy, exuberant mother and seems traumatised by any kind of social interaction. It's so focused on a few key characters that it doesn't credibly establish the society Jeanne is in.
It has this outrageous, transgressive subject but, a few sex scenes aside, the film is almost a John Hughes piece about an awkward teen trying to find her place in society. At key moments the film opts for rehashing Hollywood fantasy. The seduction sequences between her and Jumbo are like the scenes where humans try to communicate with the mothership in Close Encounters; in her close encounter atop of it, she is like Fay Wray in King Kong's palm.
Directed by Zoe Wittock.
Starring Noemie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, Bastien Bouillon. Subtitled. In cinemas. 93 mins.
People are so judgemental about sexual fetishes when mostly they are just a matter of dumb luck. It's just fate that averted you walking into a panto season dressing room and witnessing Barbara Windsor peeing in a bucket while Christopher Biggins sat watching on in cackling merriment. Just capricious destiny, but that would've been me condemned to a lifetime of doomed attempts to slyly try to manoeuvre gullible East End blondes into picture-perfect replications. (I'd probably skip the Biggins part though.)
Through no fault of her own shy introverted Belgium teen, Jeanne (Merlant) has developed into a kind of objectaphiliac Amelie. Working as a cleaner at the funfair over the summer and is sexually attracted to one of the rides, the eponymous Jumbo. And before you scoff, it's based on a true story.
The film treats the topic with great sensitivity but a little timidity. Merlant's performance does wonders making Jeanne's fragile attempts to make emotional connections seem credible and poignant but writer/director Wittock's treatment neglects to build enough of a support system around it. Like its central character, the film doesn't have a wide circle of friends. She lives with her blowsy, exuberant mother and seems traumatised by any kind of social interaction. It's so focused on a few key characters that it doesn't credibly establish the society Jeanne is in.
It has this outrageous, transgressive subject but, a few sex scenes aside, the film is almost a John Hughes piece about an awkward teen trying to find her place in society. At key moments the film opts for rehashing Hollywood fantasy. The seduction sequences between her and Jumbo are like the scenes where humans try to communicate with the mothership in Close Encounters; in her close encounter atop of it, she is like Fay Wray in King Kong's palm.
