Sometimes wonderful films fall off the public’s radar. Among these are Joe Versus the Volcano and The Fisher King, neither of which made The Rolling Stone’s list of the hundred greatest movies of the ’90s.
Both of these films are beautiful, even spiritual. Both involve a man on a transformative journey, although the two men start in drastically different places. Both are comedies, though they are deeper than many straightforward movies in that genre. Both have Amanda Plummer (a fact I only realized when looking at her bio on IMDB). And both are worth watching again and again.
Joe Versus the Volcano
Joe (Tom Hanks) hates his job, and rightfully so. He works as an advertising librarian in a bleak, hellish factory that manufactures rectal probes. The lights flicker. The coffee is bad. Joe’s boss won’t even let him keep a garish lamp that brings him joy, though he isn’t disturbing anyone.
When Joe goes home at night, it’s to an empty apartment that’s only a little better than his office. He has neither family nor friends. So when he is diagnosed with a terminal “brain cloud,” he snaps. He quits his job and asks a coworker on a date, which doesn’t go very well after he shares his diagnosis. He seems prepared to spend the final months of his life alone in his apartment, but that changes when a businessman appears with an enticing offer: Joe can live like a king for a few weeks if he’s willing to throw himself into an island volcano. In this way, the islanders will get what they want — a human sacrifice to appease the god of the volcano — and they will give the businessman what he wants — access to a resource on their island.
Joe takes him up on his offer and heads for the island.
The most moving scene of the movie is very spiritual, although not at all dogmatic. Following a storm, Joe is adrift on a patched-together raft with one other person, who has been unconscious the entire time. His situation seems hopeless. He’ll either die where he is, or he’ll somehow make it to the island, where he’ll have to commit suicide. And should neither of those happen, he still has only months to live. But sunburned and thirsty and with seemingly no way out, Joe says a prayer that is neither a plea for himself nor for his companion. He simply expresses awe-inspired gratitude.
I’ll say no more about this movie, but if you haven’t watched it, I urge you to do so.
The Fisher King
Unlike Joe, shock jock Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is on top of the world at the beginning of his story. He’s just received an offer for a role in a sitcom. Sure, he’s having problems with his significant other, but all of that’s overshadowed by his career success.
Then something he said to a listener leads to act of violence, and Jack’s world comes tumbling down.
Three years later, Jack’s a clerk in a video store. He has a new relationship, but he’s barely holding things together. After an evening of getting drunk, contemplating suicide, and then being assaulted by a couple of teenagers, Jack is rescued by a homeless man, Parry (Robin Williams). Parry believes he is a knight in search of the Holy Grail and that Jack has been sent to help him. The plot sounds like a cliché: “man’s life is changed after he encounters a homeless person.” But the film doesn’t come off that way — in part because Jack’s path to redemption isn’t straightforward, in part because the story is propelled by the power of myth.
There are a lot of references to God in this film — from the opening minutes, when Jack declares, “Thank God I’m me,” to his girlfriend Anne’s interesting theory about women, men, God, and the devil. But it’s when Parry tells Jack the story of the Fisher King that the movie becomes spiritually powerful.
There are lots of redemption stories, but there’s something particularly wonderful about this one. Maybe because there’s more to the story than Jack’s redemption.
The next time you’re in the mood for comedy with a little weight to it, look for these two neglected films. It’s a sad day when neither of them makes a 100-best movies of the ’90s list that includes Dumb and Dumber.