Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)

It’s a throwback 40s rom-com. It’s also deeply weird.

I avoided this movie my entire life and I don’t know why.

I remember seeing it on the shelves at the library and the local video rental place - it always intrigued me, but I assumed it was just a dumb rom-com. For some reason I got it confused with Sleepless in Seattle. I thought it was about a guy with cancer who throws himself into a volcano at the end. Which is technically true. But I was also very wrong.

Joe Versus the Volcano is a weird, surreal, dreamlike existential film about following your passions and confronting mortality. It’s also a throwback 1940s style rom-com. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are absolutely charming - she plays three different roles and nails each one. They can carry a movie hard, and they do.

Parts of the second act dragged for me, but I was ultimately won back by the end. I appreciate the message. It’s skeptical of the rich - duh, we should eat them. It’s a bit racist in that early 90s way that doesn’t age well. But underneath all the weirdness, there’s something genuinely lovely about its insistence that a life half-lived isn’t worth protecting.

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