Our first non-English language film, and a great one at that. We give you Zoé Wittock's directorial debut: JUMBO (2020)!
It seems disgraceful to address but this is the first complete non-English language film that we've covered. I mean, it is the first of many, many, many dives into the European Cinematic well of richness! Starting that journey on the light side, we look at Zoé Wittock's JUMBO, a love story between a young, shy woman and an inanimate amusement park ride. It's a tale established in truth though, as we cover in two separate real-life stories but what you get is a strong directorial debut that's hallucinatory quality really shines through. There's plenty to enjoy here!
Ryan: I don't know. I like the fact that Jumbo kind of reminded me a little bit of the aliens from Close Encounters because of the lights. Yeah.
Laura: Well, hello there. Well, welcome to On the BiTTE the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura. Uh, je m'appelle Laura. I can do that. That's French.
Ryan: Yeah, it is French.
Laura: And your name is? Ryan.
Ryan: Ryan, yeah.
Laura: Ah.
Ryan: My name is Ryan. My name is Ryan. It's not that I don't have an issue with the French language, but you've been learning French for the last do.
Laura: Not tell people I've been learning French. I'm terrible at French.
Ryan: Oh, well, I mean, you have been learning French.
Laura: Jesuit.
Ryan: What is 1300 days in years? What is that? What isn't it like four or five years or something?
Laura: 1300 days?
Ryan: Yeah, 1300 days. Well, each year is 365, I'm aware. Yeah. So it's about four years. Four years. Let's say four years. Steadily creeping up on five.
Laura: Are you talking about my duolingo streak?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Creeper you one lesson a day. I'm not very good at French and well, I don't know, it came in a little bit handy because our film that we're talking about today is the 2020 drama romance fantasy, Jumbo, which is a French film. It's our first non English speaking film. Not our first foreign film.
Ryan: No, we've covered necessarily. Yeah. No, we've definitely covered foreign films. Um, I would also put it, uh, play in the Fields of the Lord under the bracket of, uh, uh, a non English speaking movie. Because that film is 4 hours and half of it is in a completely different dialect.
Laura: I don't know we're going to delve more into that, but this is our first one, so it's a very exciting one. Uh, I think this movie is pretty cool. It's again. A French film.
Ryan: Yeah. This won't be the first French film we'll cover. No. Those French, they do like to show the OD knob or to bless them.
Laura: Bless their French hearts. Uh, this film was shot in Belgium and in Luxembourg. I think they both had funds into the film. So they shot a little bit here, shot a little bit there.
Ryan: Yeah. Jumbo is an international co production of France, Belgium, Luxembourg. So really, that was three separate places. Who definitely wanted to see this story. Yeah, yeah.
Laura: It's an important story. We needed to see the story.
Laura: Uh, this stars ah, noem, merlont. Emmanuel Bercot, Bastian Bouillon, and Sam Lewick in this film. Uh, uh, Zoe Wittock is the director as well, but I kind of jumped into that because I wanted to say ah, I already forgot how to say her name. Noemi. Uh, Marlon is also you'll recognize her from Portrait of a lady on Fire.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And also we just watched Tar.
Ryan: Yeah, she's in that as well.
Laura: Yeah, she's coming up.
Ryan: Yeah. No, uh, she's phenomenal. She's probably the main reason to watch this. The, uh, yeah, she's very much the foundation of this movie. Um, but other than her yeah, Zoe Wittock. Uh, she hails from Belgium. Um, and this is her directorial debut and she wrote this movie and she also directed it. Um, this movie debuted at Sundance. M. She was listed as one of the directors to watch, uh, for 2020. And, uh, her filmography is quite short, obviously. This is only her first feature and she's got a couple of shorts under her belt. Um, and one of those shorts is a demo, I think. Is that how you say that?
Laura: I can't see your notes so I can't correct your French.
Ryan: A-D-E-M-M-O-T-A demo.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: So I'm assuming that means well, you.
Laura: Understand mole is word.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Uh, and I don't know, silent word. Oh, yeah.
Ryan: There you go. See?
Laura: 50%.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, you take it well. Yeah. You're beaming right now because you're able to understand some of that.
Laura: Good thing no one yeah, you've seen.
Ryan: The yeah, you know, you know some French. Are you talking about we keep saying we. Yeah, of course. Um, and that was in 2014. And her other short was in 2017. And it was called this is not an umbrella. Um, probably a film about something that was not an umbrella.
Laura: Does she have anything coming up? Were you able to catch any of that?
Ryan: There wasn't anything on the letterboxed and she doesn't have a Wikipedia. And trying to figure out if she had any kind of projects coming up. Um, I couldn't see anything.
Laura: It's about time.
Ryan: M. Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming she does. I don't think Jumbo is a bad film. Um, I think it's a perfectly fine directorial debut. But I think the story is something that's fascinating and certainly this film itself opens with inspired by a true story.
Laura: Absolutely.
Laura: So the synopsis that I pulled from Letterboxd goes Jean, a shy young woman, works as a nightguard at an amusement park and has a close relationship with her mother. While no man can compete with his opposed duo. I didn't read this beforehand. Uh, sounds bad.
Ryan: God, the professionalism just gets well, no.
Laura: This is how it's written. And it sounds like ass.
Ryan: I mean, it's also probably user generated as well, is it not?
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: Who knows?
Laura: Okay, hold on, let me go back. While no man can compete with his opposed duo, jean begins to develop strange romantic feelings for Jumbo, the latest attraction at the theme park. That's it. Sorry.
Ryan: Oh, that's it.
Laura: Sorry.
Ryan: It felt like there was going to be more, um, a sexy attraction. This is where we get to talk about weird addictions and weird kind of like would you refer to this as like a fetish?
Laura: I don't know if the people that, uh, I don't want to say, suffer from, um, or have this attraction to inanimate objects. I don't believe they would call it a fetish, necessarily. Um, but I don't know. Who wants to tell their story first? I got a story. You have a story? Not a personal story?
Ryan: No, we're not don't put me in that no, in that box.
Laura: That sexy box.
Ryan: The thing is, you said, oh, I watched this film Jumbo, and this is obviously back in 2021, maybe when you saw Jumbo yeah. You watched Jumbo before me, and you're like, there's a deck in it. And I'm like, right. Cool. We'll cover Jumbo, um, later on. Um, but, yeah, no, you told me the story of Jumbo, and I was just like, oh, I know a story about someone, uh, who married a roller coaster. And this was all the way back in 2015. I remember seeing it in the mirror. Um, the Mirror is a UK tabloid newspaper.
Laura: You didn't see it reflected back into your eyes in the bathroom when you looked at yourself in the mirror.
Ryan: Right. So let's carry on.
Ryan: Um, so the story I remember was this woman was featured on My Strange Addiction. I don't know if, uh, it's an American show. I'd only seen kind of parts of it, but it's basically where people go on with their weird addiction, where they're, like, drinking detergent or they're eating pottery and stuff like that. Like, things that you probably shouldn't be doing. Well, the thing is, I do talk about it a little bit. Um, so there's this woman, 56, called Linda, um, who married a roller coaster called Bruce.
Laura: Oh, my gosh.
Ryan: Yeah. It's crazy, right, how it all kind of intertwines together?
Laura: I'd rather have her marry a roller coaster named Bruce than our dog. Uh, I don't need Linda in our house.
Ryan: I think it's okay. I don't seem to have many. It's the same thing I have with people who fall in love with trees. They're not really hurting anything or hurting anybody, as long as they're just kind of in love with it. People who like to hug trees, like that sort of thing. What if their jollies often just hugging a tree?
Laura: What if they molest a tree, they.
Ryan: Drill a hole in it and they start fucking it?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, then I guess that's when we have to get the police.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: But, uh, no, Linda, um, she'd had past romantic interests in other kinds of, uh, inanimate objects, one of which was a locomotive, and another of which was an aeroplane. I mean, how awesome would that be to be, like, in love with an aeroplane? Like, to feel, like some sort of sexual attachment to an aeroplane?
Laura: You think that would be cool?
Ryan: I think it'd be awesome.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Like, it'd be so simple. I mean, it's like, what you say, we have a dog called Bruce? I wouldn't want anyone marrying my dog. No, and I mean, you've no idea. It's like that guy out there who married his donkey.
Laura: Now, that is predatory. I don't like that, uh, at all. Obviously.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, there's reasons for that, I think.
Ryan: Having sex with cars, trains, planes, I think it's fair. Don't well, these items don't have feelings. And if these people are kind of messed up, just leave them to their locomotives and their roller coasters.
Laura: So if John Joe down the street wants to fuck Lightning McQueen, he should absolutely be able to.
Ryan: Lightning McQueen, as in, like, the animated car?
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: I mean, that car has quite a notable personality. I don't know if Lightning McQueen would like a, uh, man's penis in his exhaust pipe.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Honestly.
Laura: But at least he could answer, and at least he could give or rescind consent.
Ryan: Yes, but we're also dealing with inanimate objects as well, which is why I think it's fine. Maybe the tree isn't a fantastic example because technically, the tree is a living thing, um, even though it obviously has no way of communicating to you. Um, actually, no, that's probably a lie.
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: Because it's able to communicate the changes in the season. Either way. Don't hurt trees. Yeah, I know.
Laura: I'm digging a tree hole here.
Ryan: I'm digging a real tree bark hole. Like a tree dick glory hole. Um oh, no. But she saw herself. So Bruce is a 70 foot, 70 ton roller coaster. And from what I remember from reading the story, originally, the owners of the park or the fair, um, that Bruce was a part of, the owners would kind of just let her in and she would, like, stroke the roller coaster, touch the roller coaster.
Laura: Oh, boy.
Ryan: And they felt like she wasn't really doing any harm as long as it was kind of like they understood the extent to what she was doing. But then she literally got married to, uh, this roller coaster. Um, so she calls herself a self proclaimed, I would add, uh, objectum sexual.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: In that she's obviously attracted to objects. Um, but overall oh, yeah. No, just also to add, she's not from the UK. She's American. Um, so just thought I'd kind of put that one in there.
Laura: Yeah, just make sure you put that in, huh?
Ryan: Well, I mean, it was in the article, but she was also part of that show. That my strange addiction show as well. Um, and, I mean, I guess if we're already kind of talking about weird addictions, I've got a few quotes from her. I think they're fantastic. Uh, so Linda says, uh, some women like tall men, some women like men with a colorful personality. He's, as in Bruce got all of that. To me, Bruce is just amazing when he stands up and is spread wanted, because it was also in the article.
Ryan: I wanted to just talk about this because I thought it was awesome. Another person in the episode I think this is someone from the UK. Um, Patrice, 29 years old, was, uh, addicted to eating bricks.
Laura: Bricks?
Ryan: Bricks. So this woman chewed, uh, a two foot hole into the wall of her bedroom and also ate part of her grandmother's house in secret.
Laura: I hope she's okay.
Ryan: I don't know if obviously eating, uh, brick is good for you, but I would say eating brick only harms you. And certainly marrying a roller coaster, um, doesn't seem to harm anybody.
Laura: I don't know. The bricks were a part of a structure that is now compromised. Especially it's going to fall on Grandma.
Ryan: I mean, that is just unfortunate, right? But now Patrice has a stomach full of brick. Imagine passing those.
Laura: No, I don't want to.
Ryan: I know. You're just dropping bricks into the toilet. You're blocking your toilet up. It's crazy.
Laura: Anyway, this film is actually based on the story of Erica Eiffel.
Ryan: There's another one.
Laura: Uh, this was in 2007, where she m, quote, married the Eiffel Tower. And so she changed her last name to Eiffel.
Ryan: Oh, I've heard this.
Laura: Yeah, she actually started OS International, which is objective sexuality, which you were just talking about. Right. This, uh, is an organization for those who develop significant relationships with inanimate objects. And apparently some psychologists have linked this particular type of behavior with autism, but it's not something that's been widely studied. Um, but the director, Zoe Whittock, tracked down Erica Eiffel, and, uh, this is a quote from an article I read. She said, I was expecting someone who was a freak or on the margins of society. But she was really warm, soft, welcoming, and almost banal, which made me wonder how she could have made such extreme choices and to be so strong and so open about them. I started writing this story because I needed to understand her. So, um, she actually was, I guess, trying to figure out how this story would look to Erika Eiffel. I think she was really worried about offending her or offending people who are objectum sexuals. So she invited Erica to the premiere in Berlin because she lived there. And Erica said she was very, very touched. And it was well told.
Ryan: Yeah. I'd say Zoe had to be relatively, quite tactful when it came to using words like freak, because even I wouldn't have used the term freak when it came to dealing with a story.
Laura: Say it to her face.
Ryan: No, but she said it in an article and an interview and she put it out there on Front Street. So obviously fucking Erica is going to read that and see it.
Laura: I mean, to be fair, she might have said it to her face. Like, listen, you're actually quite normal. I expected you to be a total freak.
Ryan: I mean, yeah, maybe she did. I mean, I would also kind of point out that the movie itself is not Beat for Beat a True Story. It's based on it's inspired it's inspired by, uh, Elements of Truth. I'd say it's closer to whatever Linda was doing in the UK as part of that show. Um, seeing as obviously that's a lot closer to the story than, uh, the Erica Eiffel, uh, story. Yeah. I mean, I like the concept behind this, and I think that the film itself does a relatively decent job of making something that is relatively inanimate. Feel quite animated and alive to a certain degree.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's quite hallucinatory. There's things that they do, obviously, with, um well, M she calls it Jumbo. It's called the M move it ride.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, but basically, they do certain things. Like, if you put certain amounts of LEDs and different kind of lighting patterns and stuff onto this thing, it does make it feel animated because really, it has two functions in that it lifts and it rotates mhm and it goes back down again.
Laura: Yeah. They spent a long time long, long time trying to find the right ride and find also something that they could manipulate, they could change the lights. I think the only thing they changed with that ride is the lights. And so they had to rewire it so that they could manipulate and change the lights.
Ryan: Okay. I think that's really smart. I mean, they really missed a trick with not like, having a side panel on it that's like airbrushed. Like, you see those ones at the fair, like a half naked woman. Like the stuff you see on the side of, uh, a truck. I miss that sort of thing. Like a really poorly done, non commissioned, like, Tom and Jerry, like cartoon that's probably a little bit just airbrushed on the side of it. You know what? Like that it's, uh, kind of like that park we went to. Um can't remember what it was. Was it in Naples or something, where, uh, they had like bootleg Mickey and stuff like that in the it was.
Laura: Like a Michael Jackson food truck.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: It was all airbrushed and all bright lights. Yeah. Had weird Michael Jackson very all over it.
Ryan: Yeah, I've got the photos of it because I can't really do it. But yeah, had the Michael Jackson had like five or six different Michael Jackson's. And we were worried. Yeah. We were kind of wondering well, we're pretty adamantly sure that he had no idea that this thing existed. And I mean, he's not going to know it now. He's long gone. Um, but yeah. Uh, the Jackson estate certainly might have some words, potentially.
Laura: I think it was a beautiful, uh, artistic rendering of that track.
Ryan: Yeah, it was bad.
Laura: So this film we're talking about, jumbo, and it's a bit sensitive because you can kind of tell from the offset, when you meet, uh, Jean, that she's potentially, um how do I say, like I don't want to say she's mentally ill, because that's not what it is, but she might be slightly autistic.
Ryan: She's displaying certain traits that would make you think certain autism. Yeah. That she's maybe on the spectrum a little.
Laura: Right. Um.
Ryan: She'S not behaving or looking like she's of her age. And certainly obviously the sort of job she's going to do is just the cleaning the graveyard shift at the park where she's cleaning and stuff like that. And she's the only one there. And there's a sense of her, uh I guess what would be the word? She's carefree. And she's kind of like her head's in the clouds. And she's a bit kind of a bit spacey.
Laura: Definitely spacey.
Ryan: It, uh, kind of gives you the idea that maybe she's a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Which is the nicest way of putting it, really well.
Laura: Yeah. She's a bit of a dreamer. And she makes little models like, she's creating a small model town out of wires and lights of the amusement park that she works at.
Ryan: It's incredibly endearing, I would say. Yeah. She's very smart. Um, but I think for the most part, it's correct. She's shy, she's introverted. She doesn't like being around people or crowds. That's kind of put quite firmly into the narrative as well.
Laura: Well, she's especially wary or I would say wary. Not maybe not necessarily afraid, but wary of men in particular. Not cool with men.
Ryan: No. And a lot of the men who are in this story in particular are not particularly good men.
Laura: Yeah. They're either rude to her or trying to get something from her. Most of them.
Ryan: Yeah. Because she's a woman. Um, this is unfortunate. The only kind of shining character and he's not introduced particularly well. He ends up being the love interest of her mother. He turns up kind of later on and he's actually there. Yeah. Uh, he's actually very nice.
Laura: Uh, he's the best person in this film.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He's actually the nicest person. Well, you see him. Do you mind if we jump around? I can wait.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, I don't really have much to say because the film kind of follows a relatively quite methodical structure. And certainly it follows the structure to such an extent that, uh, it feels quite repetitious.
Laura: Well, it's essentially a romantic I don't want to say comedy, but kind of it's a romantic comedy structure in where you have two people, uh, who fall in love and then maybe something goes wrong and then they get back together.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, it's incredibly outlandish. I think that's where a lot of its appeal comes from, is kind of how outlandish it is, but looks so cool. Yeah. I mean, it's mostly the repetitious feeling. It comes from the fact that it only really takes place in three separate sort of locations mainly, which is, like, between the park, her house, and little bits and bobs kind of in between. Um, but I guess the story just develops to such an extent where the roller coaster is effectively speaking to her and trying to communicate with her while she's on this night shift.
Laura: Yes. And you also can kind of tell, uh, when she's kind of happy and in her little comfortable world and her little unit because everything's really bright and shining and flashing colorful. So when she meets Jumbo or when she calls him Jumbo, it's like bright, flashy, beautiful neon lights. And it's the same when she's kind of in a room and she's working and tinkering with her models of the amusement park. Like, everything's really sparkly. And she's got lights everywhere. Lights all over the ceiling and stuff. And when you were talking about how it's only really taking place in three different places, I think that kind of lends to how isolated maybe she is or how isolated I think she wants to be. Um, she's probably a little bit lonely. And so if you kind of go back and forth like, she's always kind of by herself.
Ryan: Yeah. Because she has to obviously get a ride to work. Otherwise, she's riding on the bus. And it seems like quite a journey, but they're traveling through a forest. Like, her house is through a forest trail, effectively, um, today and ended up getting to the park.
Laura: Um, and her mother is she starts off being really annoying, really kind of, uh what does she call her? Sugar puss.
Ryan: Sugar puss.
Laura: And kind of all over her. Very vibrant, uh, person. Very sexual person. She's super horny all the time.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: But she really does love her daughter. Um, and you can tell that. It's just that she does have a little bit of an issue, maybe with men.
Ryan: Yeah, I think she's had issues with men and stuff in the past. I think the only mainstay in her life has been her daughter. But also, it just so happens that her daughter, at least to her, is she's acting different. She's not kind of, in quotes, normal. Um, she had kind of weird desires and I guess kind of she's just not able to initially, when she finds out, accept the fact that she's different.
Laura: Um, there's even a moment where they're sitting speaking together, and her mom says to Jean that her dad left after he found out. You and then it's a dot, dot, dot, and Jean interrupts her. So there's obviously something they found out about Jean when she was young that her mother believes made her father leave.
Ryan: It's probably the objectum, um, sexual stuff.
Laura: You think it was that at that? I think she was just maybe that.
Ryan: First scene where she's at the bus stop, she just picks up a rock and she cradles it.
Laura: She was, like, listening.
Ryan: Yeah, she rests it on her face. Um I don't know. End of the day, if you can just pick up a rock and get your jollies off of that I don't.
Laura: Think that's what it was.
Ryan: I think it's just showing that she's.
Laura: Different and he, you know, maybe papa.
Ryan: Couldn'T I'm just kind of saying I'm just like, here. Like, if someone gave me a pencil, and I'm just like, Whoa.
Laura: My God.
Ryan: It'd be awesome. Wouldn't it?
Laura: Uh, no, I don't think I'd like that very much.
Ryan: Blowing a load in a stationary shop.
Laura: I like the back and forth of a relationship with another human being personally.
Ryan: Okay. I can't get into an argument with a pencil, but you can try.
Laura: But I think that's maybe that's part of the point and part of the appeal.
Ryan: Yeah, I guess so.
Laura: No talking back.
Ryan: That's right. It's got, like, a rubber and stuff on the end.
Laura: Something that I would be interested in researching after we actually, uh, record and finish this episode and talk about the movie is how many men have this particular inkling? The ones that we've talked about it have only been women. And when I was researching, I only saw other women.
Ryan: Yeah. I don't know. Do you think it comes across differently if it's a dude as opposed to the lady? With the lady, it feels relatively quite innocuous.
Laura: Anything with a man sounds dangerous and predatory.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Man fell over this roller coaster. Like, EW. What are you going to do with it?
Ryan: What's he done with it? Uh, where's his, um like, where's this.
Laura: Stop letting Hank in here.
Ryan: He's making a mess, and, you know, he'd be like some kind of, like, beaten down, older, uh, man with his eyes slightly popping out of his head. And he has a weird voice.
Laura: He wheezes a bit when he breathes.
Ryan: Yeah, he's obviously overweight, and he just waddles up to the roller coaster. Uh, I think I've missed you. I don't know. Why did we agree to this?
Laura: I don't know.
Laura: Well, uh, speaking of groaning sex noises so there is a sex scene. There's two.
Ryan: Definitely two. Well, there's one that's awesome. Um, that's ambiguous.
Laura: And then there's another one.
Ryan: There's another one that's just a bit yeah, but the sex not rape. The sex scene that takes place well, I can only assume it takes place in her mind.
Laura: She crawls underneath jumbo. I don't think that his underneath looks like that, though.
Ryan: I think well, she starts sleeping and living under him. Right.
Laura: I wonder if she's actually doing her job. I thought about that. Watching it the second time, I go, is she doing her job in cleaning and taking out the garbage and then goes to see Jumbo? Or is she just completely slacking off at work?
Ryan: I don't know how much she would have to have done. I feel like it's a park. Like, you would be cleaning a lot.
Laura: Of different but I guess it says that she's the security guard, but then she was kind of pushing around like a cleaning cart.
Ryan: I don't know if she's the security guard.
Laura: Well, she does a night watch.
Ryan: Uh, yeah, maybe. But I mean, she's going around cleaning night stuff.
Laura: It says she's a nightguard, but yeah, I don't know.
Ryan: Okay. Well, either way either way, to be fair, for the purposes of the film, I don't think we need to see her job yet.
Laura: Her complete routine at the job. It seems like she's just given up actual work and she's just, like, all about the sex.
Ryan: I mean, potentially. Yeah. Uh, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Um, she's just rubbing herself against the roller coaster.
Laura: She does. She does. But she goes underneath Jumbo, and it is kind of that ambiguous, ah, place between worlds, almost, where it's a white void. White void.
Ryan: And there's all this blackness. It's kind of like a reverse under the skin.
Laura: Yeah, it's definitely under the skin vibes, especially. She dips her hand into the oil, onto the ground, like very, uh, under the skin vibes.
Ryan: I like that. That's my favorite part. That's an idea I've had in my head for a while. And I quite liked seeing that because not only does she put her arm into that goop, it comes out perfectly black.
Laura: Yeah, it's pretty good because oil wouldn't look like that.
Ryan: Hell no. It's slightly translucent, and it's also, like, a little bit more brown than black.
Laura: That was cool.
Ryan: Yeah. I think they did a good job with that moment. Really? I think they do a good job just with Jumbo in general. I feel like all the money was spent on Jumbo and well worth it, I think. Yeah. Uh, he was the star, obviously.
Laura: Yeah. I don't know. That scene was really cool.
Laura: And, of course, we were also talking when we were watching the film that it reminds us a little bit of Titan as well, uh, in a way. Bit of objectum sexuality there as well.
Ryan: Yeah. Less kind of there's no real kind of like, body horror sort of elements in this thing.
Laura: It's kind of very tame.
Ryan: Very tame.
Laura: It's rated when we put it on because this was streaming on tubi. It said TVMA, which I found weird.
Ryan: It might be because we're kind of desensitized, but her boobs are out almost all the time. And we see her vagina, uh, at least like her bush. The very beginning of the movie. We see her dressed and we see her ass. We see everything.
Laura: Yeah. Right in the beginning.
Ryan: Yeah. She's, like, fully naked for large swathes of the film.
Laura: I guess there is a penis in it as well.
Ryan: And there's also a penis. So for it to get rated mature is genuinely not a surprise.
Laura: It seems fairly tame.
Ryan: There's no real swearing. There's nothing really that there's nothing in the language that would give it anything else. But there's an overabundance of, uh, nudity uh, in the movie.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So that's kind of the reason why, I guess.
Laura: Anyway, that scene was great. I liked it. I thought it looked really cool. I'm sure that they spent a little bit of money on some computer graphics to make the oil do the things that it did to her body.
Ryan: Yeah, it looked fine. Yeah, it looked fine. I think, uh, it is a. Visual metaphor of how, um, Jumbo was able to, uh, satisfy her sexually.
Laura: That's true. It was her first orgasm.
Ryan: Um, she got her first orgasm. Um, that means it's real love. Yeah. Jumbo just knew what he was doing.
Laura: He's been around.
Ryan: He's been around some. Yeah. Do you think Jumbo is a bit of a scamp?
Laura: It's a little bit of a slut.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Maybe jumbo slut.
Ryan: Just a jumbo slut.
Laura: I'm just joking. He's really in love.
Ryan: Okay, that's fine.
Laura: But this is a moment where I do believe that Jean feels like she can maybe connect with her mother a bit because her mom's a very sexual person. There's a man in the house. You heard them having very loud sex. And her mom's always trying to say she's a little bit vulgar, but she's like, oh, this man gave me an orgasm. It's great. And so Jean's like, well, yeah. I mean, I also had one last night with Jumbo, which, of course, sets her mother off the rails completely and just kicks Jean out of the yeah. And in this one moment where I know I know what this is to you now. I know what you feel. And we can talk about this, and we can be on the same level like you've always wanted us to be. And her mom's like, Absolutely not.
Ryan: Yeah. She's just not going to accept, um, this particular quirk about her daughter, because it seems fairly obvious to me I think her mother's been maybe a little bit ignorant, but it seems obvious to me that they've been dealing with a child who's had issues for maybe quite a while.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, and this is just kind of like the camel that breaks. The, uh, French mother's.
Laura: Always the mother's always trying to push Jean's boss Mark, on her.
Ryan: Yeah. And I guess he just keeps coming.
Laura: Over and coming around and picking her up and taking her to work.
Ryan: And he's always like, he's a malingerer.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: But this kind of leads us into what is effectively the dick scene. So, like I said, he's lingering. He's just kind of around. And, uh, he's spoken to her mother and things like that. And I think Jean is starting to spiral a little bit because she's been thrown out the house. It's raining. Jumbo's not talking to her the same way. Or she's getting annoyed at Jumbo because he's a little bit too needy, all this sort of stuff. And she, uh, ends up after being out in the rain, she ends up going to where this dude is the boss, um, in his office, and he's still there. Um, and I guess the scene itself begins. It's this one shot. And I don't know. Did you not know? You know, it's the glass. Right.
Laura: So this scene starts it's an hour, two minutes and 51 seconds. About approximately, uh, exactly. But, yeah, you start in this office, and you can kind of see her in the back undressed very, very dark. There's no bright colors. There's just like a little bit of green in the background, little bit of red. It's just darkness. And I'm just saying that in contrast to how she is when she's with Jumbo or when she's, like, by herself in her room, everything's kind of bright and colorful and happy. And then she's in this dark, sad little office, and from what I remember, she walks over to him and she's taken all of her clothes off. And then he does the same.
Ryan: Um, so, yeah, she's in the background. He's allowing her her dignity to she's taking off her wet clothes, or he's assuming she's going to change into dry clothes because she's soaked. Um, and he's round the other side of where the glass is, but she comes around the other side of the glass and she's topless, still wearing her pants, and she incentivizes him to start taking his clothes off. Yes so obviously that's what happens. That's how the scene is. It's not as if he's saying take your clothes off. Yes, there's at least a kind of mutual understanding because he has tried to.
Laura: Kiss her in the past when she's kind of in that spiraling moment where she's trying to get to Jumbo and these kids are being mean to her and she rushes into the ride and is just holding Jumbo. And I think it was right after he tried to kiss her. And it's just this kind of she feels this love for Jumbo, but then she also has this kind of what I would assume is pressure from her mother to be know. So then she's seeing this guy who's been pursuing her for a while. Mhm um yeah.
Ryan: He just won't leave her alone. Plus also he's the boss at her work so she can't avoid him.
Laura: I um, also feel like there was a weird moment where he asked if she was going to be joining in the competition and she didn't know what he was talking about and he goes, oh, Employee of the Year. There's a weird part of me that thinks like are you blackmailing her? In a weird way like to have a relationship with you to win Employee of the Year? I don't know who was ever given an absolute shit about winning some sort of contest and being the best employee. Yeah but I don't know, there was kind of a weird connection there in my head where I thought are you trying to manipulate her?
Ryan: Yeah, I think he's maybe doing something he's a little bit slimy um, but they incentivize each other to take their clothes off in this dark space. They are completely naked and this is where we see him pretty much in a kind of midwide um, we see him drawers down, we see his penis.
Laura: It's still pretty dark, pretty shadowy uh it's prominently there, that's for sure. Yeah it comes out of the darkness.
Ryan: It does. And uh, out of the darkness comes some, uh, hard pounding.
Laura: It's so sad because it's not rape.
Ryan: No, it's just sad. It's very sad kind of sex. He even says, like, halfway through when they're doing it, is that you sure you don't want to just turn around?
Laura: Yeah. He's got her from behind. And you're only watching it in the reflection of a, uh, glass on a photograph hung on the wall, which I believe is Mark just as an employee on the wall.
Ryan: Yeah, probably.
Laura: So it's just like his employee photo on the wall. And the glass is just we're just watching the glass and the reflection of this sad pounding in the darkness.
Ryan: I'd say, like, it is. Yeah. It's potentially gratuitous because all you can.
Laura: Hear is yeah.
Ryan: That'S all you can.
Laura: And what makes it worse, because you already are uncomfortable, you don't feel good about this because you know that she loves that ride so much, she's got.
Ryan: A dead face on.
Laura: Also, uh, when actually the camera moves or when the shot changes, and it's just her face with this faceless man behind her just pounding away and just tears are running down her cheeks. Oh, it's horrible.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: This poor girl.
Ryan: Yeah. Jumble would never do no, no good. Jumble.
Laura: He's a good boy. Yeah. And then right when they're finished or when he's finished yeah. She didn't finish. No, certainly not. Sorry. I'm just dry pounding.
Ryan: Yeah. It's pretty gross.
Laura: It is grim. Uh, she tells him she doesn't want to marry him, and he's like, well, we should have sex a couple more times before we ask a priest to come over.
Ryan: Well, he says that. Uh, doesn't he? He's like, oh, I'm not going to marry you.
Laura: No. She says it two times.
Ryan: Oh, does she?
Laura: She says it.
Ryan: Oh, I thought he said it.
Laura: Because she just doesn't know.
Ryan: Yeah, she doesn't know because she had.
Laura: Sex with Jumbo, at least in some.
Ryan: Reality in her mind.
Laura: But, uh, she wants to marry Jumbo.
Ryan: She does want to marry Jumbo. There is a sense of trying to keep this poor woman on the straight and narrow. But then also, they obviously walk a very fine line of enabling this behavior. And long story short, they do end up trespassing. Um, because the boss, he's just like, it's for your own good. I'm getting rid of the move. It right he's selling the move.
Laura: It right after she wins Employee of the Year.
Ryan: After she wins Employee of the Year.
Laura: And he keeps her on the stage after she won her award. And he goes, oh, hold on just a second. He goes, oh, just so you know, Jumbo's not doing that well. He's not, like, a great attraction. So we're selling him after we close down for the winter. And she flips.
Ryan: She is distraught.
Laura: Phillips I think she even passes out.
Ryan: She just can't it's not it's not good. But, um, this is also well, it.
Laura: Kind of came to a head just before uh, sorry, um, for backtracking a second. But she feels so awful about having sex with Mark that she runs into the park and is just rubbing her naked body, or at least topless body, all over the ride. And Mark sees her. He's the only one that sees this happening. And she's crying and she's just kissing Jumbo. And, um, Mark then confronts her about it and then makes fun of her. He's like, what? Like he can't comprehend what's happening either. And so then, yeah, he makes that.
Ryan: Decision to sell off Jumbo sack Jumbo.
Ryan: But who's the mother's love interest? Hubert.
Laura: Hubert.
Ryan: Well, there you go. Um, that may be the first time that's ever happened on any of these podcast episodes.
Laura: What? You remember the lover's name? Or you said Hubert in a French accent.
Ryan: The dog came in.
Laura: He needs to hold on for a second.
Ryan: Yeah, well, he is the only sympathetic figure. And the mother kind of follows suit because she doesn't want Hubert to kind of leave her either. And I think Hubert is actually speaking quite a lot of, um, m what.
Laura: You said hurting anyone.
Ryan: Yeah, she's not hurting anybody. There's no hurt to be had here. The only person that she's effectively going to be hurting eventually would be herself. Um, because there would have to be some level of realization about what's actually happening and the fact that it's not like you can take that ride home with you so that you can live with the ride. The ride is kind of what it is. Um, so effectively either way, hubert. I don't know. I think it's a nice moment. I do think it's also slightly of there's a lot of things kind of going on in this moment. But she does end up putting on a wedding dress and they end up going down there to marry her to Jumbo.
Laura: Yes, there's a lot of stuff happening in that scene. But the mother even reconciliation.
Ryan: Reconciliation, right.
Laura: Well, while the mother is saying the marriage ceremony and she goes, till death do you part. And she goes, well, you're going to die before him. He can't die. And she's like, just keep going. Just keep doing it. Um, seems like Jumbo hesitates for a second. And it is sugary sweet in a way because you have everyone kind of reconciled and she gets what she wants.
Ryan: And it's a little bit yeah, it walks a bit of a fine line. I feel like I'm on the other side of that where I think it's I don't know if I'm particularly a massive fan of it, um, just because of how contrived I kind of feel like it is.
Laura: You have two choices here. You have a horrific ending that is incredibly sad and where she gets everything taken away from her and she gets put in a hospital.
Ryan: No, there's another ending. There is an ending to that which is bright and sunny.
Laura: What is it?
Ryan: Hubert goes to the park and he lifts Jumbo up and he walks it back to the house and he puts it in their backyard.
Laura: Hell yeah.
Ryan: Because he had that tiny little hat on. He's probably built like a fucking fire truck. Yeah, I bet he could lift it all right.
Laura: I like that ending.
Ryan: Yeah. Or they airbrush a picture of her with the ride, like on the side and stuff like that. And then it's there and it's immortalized. See, there's a lot of tricks here. They're missing the kind of stuff that I wanted to see.
Laura: Well, I don't know what I wanted to see. I think I saw what I wanted earlier.
Ryan: It's missing 100% of the airbrushing. That's all I airbrush.
Laura: Fan ryan Henderson. Amazing.
Ryan: Um, I'm not going to say it's a dying art or anything, but when you see it, you're just like you know what mean? Like, certainly when it's particularly fucking like I think it's awesome.
Laura: It's so know. It's it's nice. You have a reconciliation of the mother and daughter, which was a really important part of the story. And I think they've accepted each other for who they are. And it's lovely. And now they have their own happy little family.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, it ends yeah. It ends with them running out of the running out of the park, being chased by some youth.
Laura: Some youths.
Ryan: Those fucking youth. Yeah. They were very, uh, scary. Very irritating. Well, again, it's like what we said we've said before on other episodes is that if a youth comes up and threatens you, there's not really an awful lot you can do about it.
Laura: Yeah. You just have to be scared because.
Ryan: You'Re the one who gets in trouble. Yeah.
Laura: Do you have anything else to add before we go into our ratings?
Ryan: No.
Laura: Wow. Okay. For visibility, it's kind of a shame that we have to talk about the sad penis scene and not like the cool sex scene with Jumbo. There's no dick in jumbo.
Ryan: Jumbo doesn't have a dick.
Laura: No.
Ryan: He is an inanimate object that does not have any sort of phallus. No whatsoever.
Laura: Just a shame because for visibility and context uh, two and a half for me.
Ryan: Yeah, I'm going to probably second that. Uh, very dark. And I also am not a fan of it.
Laura: I don't like that penis at all. Get it out of here. It's a penis used for suffering.
Ryan: It's also kind of like yeah. It's also one of those moments because of the context of it. I just don't know if I like it being there.
Laura: Maybe she needed that penis to realize how much she truly loved Jumbo.
Ryan: Um, yeah.
Laura: Spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched White Lotus season two. Sometimes you just got to cheat to know what your love is really all about.
Ryan: We found out recently that Orlando is the, uh isn't it the cheating capital of the US or something? Or is it the cheating capital of Florida?
Laura: At least of Florida.
Ryan: At least of Florida. So people cheating all the time.
Laura: Yeah. Gross.
Laura: So, uh, for the film, overall, I gave it a 3.5. I ticked it down a half star. Uh, the second time I watched it. I don't know why, because I kind of knew it was coming. So maybe it doesn't have incredible rewatch value, but it's still very good. Entertaining and bright and colorful. And it's got a penis in it. And it has a happy ending.
Ryan: Yeah. I gave it three stars. I don't think it's anything particularly special, but I think they've done their best with i, uh, guess with what the story is. The story itself, I think, is fascinating. But to try and stretch it out for an entire movie, I think it's a big ask. But I think they've tried their best with it. There's some nice visual flourishes, nice bursts of color and stuff like that. And I think they do their best to deal with, effectively, a tightrope situation where it's kind of how do you deal with, obviously, someone who's obviously mentally ill, um, and how do you satisfy appease them in this sort of situation? I think it's a bit of a double edged sword.
Laura: It's a sensitive story, especially. I think they put it together well because if you go too far down the route of someone, uh, being on the spectrum or having mental illness, um, or if you don't talk about it at all. So it's tough to sprinkle this in and sprinkle that in and have it come out as sensitively as it does. Yeah, I think Zoe Whitake did a great job, and it's a know first feature.
Ryan: Yeah, I think it's a strong debut. But like I say, I think, uh, it's about walking. Uh, it's definitely walking. A bit of a bit of a tightrope. And I don't think you can do it any other way than this, really. Um, so I think yes, I think gold, uh, star.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Cheers.
Laura: Um, for the sad penis. I'm glad they're there because I do think that with the amount of nudity that was in it, I think it would be a little bit unfair if there wasn't a penis. But then again, we did need him in the story, too.
Ryan: We did need him in the story. I don't know if the film itself needed all that nudity on either side, honestly.
Laura: Potentially.
Ryan: I, uh, think it was one of those where I was kind of surprised, like, how much, uh but I saw of that.
Laura: I like that in the way because people in our regular lives are nude when we're having sex. We're nude when we get up in the morning. I don't know. A lot of people are like, they don't sleep with clothes on. And when you're changing, you have to get naked. So if you're kind of just normalizing nudity in that way, then it's not as shocking so for her to be having as many nude scenes as she did. And then you have a, uh, very short but powerful nude scene from this gentleman, then I think that all kind of works to the benefit of the film.
Ryan: I would preface it as well, is that there's a reason why it is this way. Because it's relatively quite, I guess, kind of casual, I guess. I would call it casual nudity.
Laura: Love casual nudity.
Ryan: Um, but certainly if there was an American remake of this movie, it would not have it would not have Goofy. It'd be very stupid.
Laura: Awful.
Ryan: Yeah. It would probably star.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, I think so. I'm on the ball.
Laura: Do the gender swap.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Michael Sarah would fall I think maybe.
Ryan: We get Michael Sarah on Water Park and be like, you think you could maybe do this? What? Fuck it. He'd fall in love with a Slip and Slide, maybe.
Laura: Slip and slide. Or like, you know, like those water, uh, slides that are like the bullet. Like the Wedgie makers.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: You could fall in love with one of those.
Ryan: Cool. And the music will be provided by Smashmouth. Fuck, yeah.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Or as what I've been trying to do is to bring back the new metal end credit song. So, like, maybe Godsmack could be at the end of it. As hell yeah. A little bit Godsmack.
Laura: Well, I think Smash Mouth makes more sense, uh, considering the type of film because you know it's going to be a jokey comedy.
Ryan: Yeah. Everyone wants to be a superstar.
Laura: I do think, uh, y'all should watch this movie. And it's free on tubi right now.
Ryan: I'm done.
Laura: Coming to you from underneath the move.
Ryan: It ride covered in oil jumbo zinerds.
Laura: OOH, baby, I have been Laura.
Ryan: I'm Ryan.
Laura: Ahovois. Monamis. Ms bad at French.
Ryan: Uh, well, you shouldn't be after fucking, what, five years or something? At fucking studying French. Wicked SMAT fucking laxadaisical.