[CFF 2020 Review] Jumbo is the Queerest Coming of Age Story I've Seen in Awhile

“What is it, if it isn’t love?”

This question, asked in the middle of writer/director Zoé Wittock’s debut feature Jumbo cuts to the heart of the queer experience. Time and time again, we’re told that what we feel isn’t right or natural. That it isn’t love. But whether it’s with a human or an aquatic prince in the 1960s…or a giant carnival ride…what is it, if it’s not love?

Jeanne (Noémie Merlant) is odd. She feels slightly out of step with the rest of the world. She see things differently and is in her head a lot of the time. Jeanne also loves carnival rides and her room is filled with recreations of her favorites from the carnival she spends her summers working at. She lives with her single mother Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot) and while it’s suggested her father abandoned them, on Jeanne’s first day back at the carnival, Margarette kisses her forehead three times. Once for Jeanne, once for Margarette and once for her father. Jeanne obviously has mixed feelings about the last one, but, as her mother says, she didn’t make Jeanne with my vibrator…

“Unfortunately,” she wryly adds. 

The new carnival season is starting up and they have a new ride called Move-It that fascinates and enthralls Jeanne. And while it has her attention, the new operations manager Marc (Bastien Bouillon) is equally fascinated with Jeanne. He tries to start up a friendship with her, but Jeanne’s anxious and uncomfortable around people. She has a piggy bank with the words “Destination Happiness” on it and plans to get away from all of this. 

Her first night, after the carnival closes, Jeanne starts cleaning around the Move-It when she hears a noise, followed by rumbling. The Move-It moans and titillates Jeanne, who secretly renames it Jumbo. Later, while climbing on Jumbo, she slips and grabs onto the machine’s side, holding on for dear life. And Jumbo turns on and lowers her to the ground. 

The machine’s alive.

So, Jeanne creates a rudimentary way of communicating with Jumbo through the use of its flashing lights; red lights for “no” and green for “yes.” After asking whether Jumbo will take her for a ride, it roars to life and twirls her about, the score by Thomas Roussel soaring along with her; majestic and pulsating. As Jumbo twirls and twirls, both Jeanne and the score rise to an orgasmic crescendo.

What follows is an untraditional love story between a young adult and a carnival ride. While it might sound absolutely ridiculous and cringe-worthy, it’s played with so much heart and empathy that you’ll believe love can bloom between flesh and blood and cold steel and oil. It works because Zoé Wittock infuses her love story with authenticity and tenderness and a queer sensibility. Because Jumbo is a queer story, whether you take that to mean “odd” or a story about the LGBTQ+ community. Jeanne’s attraction to the ride becomes a metaphor for anyone whose sexuality falls outside of the cis-hetrero social construct.

Zoé uses a queer cinematic language in structuring her story and Jumbo actually hits a lot of coming-out-of-the-closet beats that will be familiar to queer fans. Jeanne’s mom, for example, is sexually liberated and brings her new fling Hubert (Sam Louwyck) home to blatantly have sex in her bedroom while Jeanne sits in the living room, watching TV. They have sexual discussions and it’s obvious that they tell each other everything. So when Jeanne is excited about her new relationship and tries to broach the subject, Margarette immediately thinks Jeanne’s talking about Marc. But, Jeanne continues on, telling her, “I’d like to talk to you about someone…Someone different.”

A bit later, when Margarette “meets” Jumbo and understands what Jeanne was trying to tell her, that sexual liberality vanishes and she pulls back. The ride itself scares her, when Jeanne turns it on and it starts fling her around. But the thought that her daughter isn’t “normal” terrifies her even more. So she pushes harder to get Jeanne with Marc, as if she can “cure” these romantic feelings while hoping that this is just a phase. 

Zoé and cinematographer Thomas Buelens bring so much visual style and sensuality to the screen. When Jeanne has a sexual awakening, it’s filmed in stark white backgrounds with a black oil that is obviously seminal. The way Jeanne plays in the oil. The way it drips down her arms and coats her entire body in black stickiness is probably the most erotic thing I’ve seen in a movie in awhile. 

Watching Jeanne go from what was probably her first orgasm to trying to explain to her situation to her mother is a heart-wrenching experience. Partly because it taps into the queer experience and partly because it feels incredibly authentic, however odd. And when she tells Margarette she loves him, the response is like a slap to the face.

“It’s not the same.” 

By pulling from queer stories, Jumbo uses genre trappings to fully explore what it means to be different and what it means to have your love validated…even if it goes against the societal norm. I found myself so enraptured in Jeanne’s story. As she grapples with her feeling, lashes out, fights back, is outcast and struggles with conformity, I saw so many queer tropes played out, drizzled in an oily sheen of genre weirdness and I understood.

Jumbo is fantastic and such an honest portrayal of trying to come out and love yourself.