Thirty-five years after its premiere, Joe Versus the Volcano continues to be one of the most overlooked romantic comedies.

      Amblin Entertainment

      John Patrick Shanley’s often-overlooked whimsical romantic comedy, Joe Versus the Volcano, serves as a vital link between the romantic comedies of the 1980s and 1990s. As it celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary on March 9th, it remains as engaging and poignant today as it was upon its initial release to lukewarm reviews in 1990.

      Quirky comedy from a recognized screenwriter

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      Shanley, an Off-Broadway playwright who gained acclaim with his exceptional screenplay for Moonstruck in 1987, has demonstrated the ability to create works of remarkable seriousness, such as his 2005 play Doubt: A Parable, which was also adapted into a 2008 film directed by Shanley and starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, Joe, marking his directorial debut, is delightfully absurd, featuring a comedic style all its own.

      The protagonist, Joe (played by Tom Hanks), is a hypochondriacal catalogue worker at a medical supply company called American Panascope (“Home of the Rectal Probe”), who is convinced by a fraudulent doctor that he is terminally ill. The quirky billionaire Samuel Harvey Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges, father of Jeff) employs the despondent Joe to leap into a volcano in the South Pacific to secure a profitable minerals contract with the local tribe, believing that Joe has little time left. Joe accepts the offer and is guided to the island of Waponi Woo by Graynamore’s two daughters, both portrayed by Meg Ryan, marking her first on-screen collaboration with Hanks.

      Themes and imagery

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      The plot, which may come off as annoyingly eccentric at first glance, is orchestrated by Shanley, who has an often-underrated understanding of recurring visual motifs. The crooked path leading to the hellish entrance of American Panascope—a jagged polygon—reappears throughout the film, initially as the Panascope logo, then as the road to the volcano, and later as a lightning bolt. As Hanks's Joe stumbles into his dreary job at Panascope, he raises his hands in despair; yet later, adrift at sea, he raises them again in a celebratory gesture, expressing gratitude for life: “Dear God, whose name I do not know: Thank you for my life. I forgot… How big. Thank you. Thank you for my life.” Hanks, primarily seen as a comedic actor at this point, delivers an impressive performance as an emblem of the downtrodden who learns to embrace joy amidst despair.

      Shanley's underlying message suggests that we should examine the world for patterns and symbols in the same way we interpret films, to understand life as an interconnected narrative where we all play essential roles; his dialogue urges us to “awake” and to “live in a state of constant amazement.”

      Meg Ryan in multiple roles

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      Ryan, who later starred alongside Hanks in 1990s rom-coms Sleepless in Seattle (1992) and You’ve Got Mail (1998), takes on three roles: DeDe, one of Joe’s colleagues at Panascope, and Graynamore’s two rebellious daughters, Angelica and Patricia. Ryan delivers the finest performances of her career here. Sporting a series of outrageous wigs (“The first time I saw you,” one character states, “I felt like I’d met you before”), she creates three memorable characters. Joe is initially drawn to DeDe out of desire, develops sympathy for Angelica, and quickly falls head over heels for Patricia, which ironically critiques the clichés that often underpin such plots. “I’ve fallen in love with you,” she confesses to Joe; “I don’t know how it happened! And I’ve never even slept with you or anything.”

      The brilliance of her triple role lies in Joe’s simultaneous affection for one woman and three, breaking down the conventional Shakespearean marriage narrative into rising action (DeDe), deepening connection (Angelica), and climax (Patricia), all accomplished fluidly. Furthermore, through repeated imagery, Hanks’s hand grasps Ryan’s in the same desperate, human motion across two of the three storylines, reinforcing the notion that these three unique characters are facets of one woman.

      Broad comedy with a stellar supporting cast

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      What Shanley allows his romantic comedy scripts to explore, which Ephron, despite her immense talent, never fully engaged in, is the realm of the broad, melodramatic, and whimsical. (It's no surprise that Nic Cage in Moonstruck fits seamlessly into this world: “I lost my hand! I lost my bride!”) This results in outrageous performances not only from the comically expressive Bridges but also from Abe Vigoda, Amanda Plummer