Jeanne (Noemie Merlant) is an outcast in her community. She dresses very plainly does not seem to have any friends except for her mom (Emmanuelle Bercot) and she works for the cleanup crew for the local fair. At home, she spends most of her time in her room building miniature mechanical contraptions amongst a see of LED lights. She is clearly more comfortable with inanimate objects than humans. As she turns on her devices she closes her eyes seeming swept aware to another plane achieving pure happiness as evidenced by the smile on her face.
Jeanne is often alone in the park at night as she cleans up. She ventures into the control room to switch on the fairs newest attraction the tilt-a-whirl ride. She approaches the ride inspects and cleans it then gets a response. The ride appears to answer her questions displaying different colours for a yes and no answer. Jeanne continues to end her night at the ride that she has nicknamed Jumbo where the dialogue continues even with the controls turned off developing into something more.
Object sexuality or Objectophilia is a documented condition that can often be traced back to childhood trauma or when an object is a reminder of past pleasurable sexual activity. The film has a line: Inanimate objects have a soul which attaches itself to ours and forces it to feel love. Jeanne repeats this phrase over and over to herself as her relations ship with Jumbo moves from conversational to physical. Her mother of course sees this as something very wrong with Jeanne reveals the news of Jumbo to her. She assumed that her daughter was romantically involved with the Marc (Bastien Bouillon) the Manager of the park who has taken an interest in her often giving her rides to and from work.
Director Zoe Wittock took a rarely discussed subject animism (objects have souls,intelligence, feelings and can communicate) as the basis for her debut film. Her lead actress Noemie Merlant fresh off her international success in Portrait of A Lady on Fire fully commits to the role where any level of doubt would make the production look silly. The narrative builds momentum up until the end of the second act where Jeanne makes a choice that seems out of character then the outside pressure to conform outweighs the earlier effort to be bold in the final act of the piece.
**1/2 Out of 4.
Jumbo | Zoe Wittock | Belgium / France/ Luxembourg | 93 Minutes.
Tags: Amusement Park, Janitor,Night Shift, Tilt-A-Whirl, Object Sexuality, Animism, Objectophilia.
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