Jumbo tells the same old story. Girl (Noémie Merlant) meets amusement park ride. Girl falls for amusement park ride. But will her mother approve? Inspired by the true story of a woman who married the Eiffel Tower, Belgian writer-director Zoé Wittock’s film deftly explores the little-tackled topic of ‘objectophilia’, the sexual desire for and obsession with inanimate objects. It could easily be silly and tasteless, but Wittock lands a tone that not only makes it believable but also affecting, helped enormously by Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’s Noémie Merlant as the woman with a thing for shiny spinning metal.
Merlant is Jeanne, a diffident, socially uncomfortable, thirtysomething woman who lives at home with her salty, overbearing mother (Emmanuelle Bercot) and spends her time masturbating to spanners and labouring over creating miniature fairground attractions. She gets a gig at a local run-down amusement park as a night-time cleaner and begins to attract the attention of an insistent co-worker (Bastien Bouillon). Yet Jeanne only has eyes for another: a brand-spanking-new ride called Move It — she pet-names it Jumbo — that she meticulously takes care of, lavishing TLC on its knobs, teaching it ways to communicate via movement and coloured lights — red light is for no, green is for go, go, go — and ultimately pleasuring herself with ‘him’ in an extended Under The Skin-y impressionistic set-piece that goes overboard on metaphorical dripping black machine oil.
The ace in the pack is Merlant, who completely commits to Jeanne’s mix of diffidence and horniness.
In some sense, Jumbo bizarrely shares DNA with Close Encounters Of The Third Kind in its use of lightshows and bells and whistles as a means of communication. Wittock imbues her slight story with a fairy-tale vibe, Thomas Roussel’s synth score, flitting between the dark and the ethereal, adding to the unreal feel.
Throughout, the filmmaker shows generosity and empathy towards her offbeat protagonist and her story. Her ace in the pack is Merlant, who completely commits to Jeanne’s mix of diffidence and horniness and, when events conspire to keep the ‘couple’ apart, fully conveys a sense of thwarted passion and anger. The final act goes a bit haywire, but Jumbo delivers a neat Valentine to taking love where you can find it.