Jumbo

There’s something atypical about Jeanne (Noémie Merlant). The film never diagnoses her dreamy disconnection from other people, but she may be somewhere on the autism spectrum. So it’s a big deal when her mother, Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot), drops her off for a solitary job as the overnight cleaner at a small French amusement park. Jeanne’s hobby is building models of rides, so the assignment seems a perfect match.

Writer-director Zoé Wittock puts us solidly on Jeanne’s side, with the able assistance of a guileless performance by Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire). So when Jeanne starts flirting with the park’s big new ride, called the Move-It — which spins rows of inward-facing seats from a mobile arm overhead — it’s a charming fantasy. The machine appears to communicate with her via its flashing lights, although what’s real and what’s just in Jeanne’s head is never clear.

The movie reaches its whimsical peak when Jeanne decides she’s in love with the Move-It, which she has dubbed “Jumbo” — a state of bliss that can last only as long as it remains a secret. The backlash begins about halfway into the film, a point when Wittock abandons fantasy entirely, in favor of an awkward allegory about socially unacceptable romance.

Jumbo begins with the claim that the story is based on a real incident, but it’s not. Wittock was inspired by a news story about a woman who “married” the Eiffel Tower (Google “Erika Eiffel” to learn more), which led her to investigate the phenomenon of “object sexuality.” Not surprisingly, people who develop romantic attachments to inanimate or mechanical objects are little understood, although one study found many such subjects had been diagnosed with some form of autism.

But Wittock isn’t really interested in Jeanne’s psychology, preferring to accept her attachment at face value and then to demonize all those who would oppose her feelings, including Margarette and Margarette’s lover of the moment, Hubert (Sam Louwyck). Jeanne also has a human suitor, her boss, Marc (Bastien Bouillon), who seems both sincere and somewhat creepy. Marc does his best to cover for Jeanne’s oddities among the carnival crew, in ways that strain credibility, as does the attempt at an audience-pleasing ending.

Most curious in the film’s second half is the abandonment of the trippiness that powers Jeanne’s initial encounters with Jumbo. It’s as if her most charming co-star had simply been cut from the film.

Grade: C-plus. Not rated, but PG equivalent. Now available to rent via Grail Moviehouse’s Virtual Sofa Cinema streaming service.

(Photo © Caroline Fauvet, courtesy of Dark Star Pictures)