Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)

and the Daughter Who Had a Price

A strange, sweet fable about a man told he's dying, and the rich man who arranged it. Read for the three women Meg Ryan plays, two of them living on their father's money. What it teaches about a boss who calls feeling bad a weakness, a diagnosis that served someone else's plan, "I had a price," and doing the thing you're scared of.

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. Tom Hanks as Joe Banks, Meg Ryan as DeDe, Angelica and Patricia, Lloyd Bridges as Samuel Graynamore, Dan Hedaya as Frank Waturi, Robert Stack as Dr. Ellison, and Ossie Davis as Marshall.

“He knew I wanted this boat and he used it and he got me working for him, which I swore I would never do. I feel ashamed because I had a price.”

Patricia Graynamore, about her father.

A note before you read. This is a gentle comedy, but its plot is about a man who agrees to die, and one character asks another whether he’s ever thought about ending his life. Nothing is described. If you are thinking about suicide, you can call or text 988, any time, in the US. Every other number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is a refusal, and the gentle issue after a heavy one, The Great Gatsby. It’s a strange, sweet fable that got mixed reviews when it came out and has since become a cult film. Its hero is a man, but Meg Ryan plays all three of the women he meets, and two of them are living on a rich father’s terms. This page reads it for them, and for the man who arranged everyone’s life, including Joe’s death.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. That rule turns out to be the point of the film.

The Story

Joe Banks works a dreary clerical job at a factory on Staten Island, for a boss, Frank Waturi, who makes everyone miserable. Joe is always sick, and doctors can never find anything wrong. Then Dr. Ellison tells him he has a “brain cloud”: no symptoms, incurable, five or six months to live. His other symptoms, the doctor says, are in his head, from his old job as a firefighter. Live well, he says.

Joe tells his boss off, quits, and asks his co-worker DeDe out. The date goes well, until he tells her he’s dying, and she says she can’t deal with it and leaves.

The next day, a rich industrialist, Samuel Graynamore, makes Joe an offer. He needs a rare mineral found only on a Pacific island, Waponi Woo, and the islanders will let him mine it only if someone volunteers to jump into their volcano, as their tradition demands once a century. Graynamore will pay for whatever Joe wants for his last days, if Joe jumps within twenty days. Joe says yes.

In Los Angeles, Joe meets Angelica, one of Graynamore’s daughters, a restless socialite who lives on her father’s money. The next day he boards her father’s yacht, captained by her half-sister, Patricia, who has agreed to take Joe to the island because her father promised her the boat.

Joe and Patricia slowly grow close. In a typhoon, Patricia is knocked overboard and Joe saves her. The yacht sinks, and they drift on a raft made of his luggage while Joe gives her all the water. When she wakes, she’s deeply moved by what he did. They reach the island.

Patricia tells Joe she loves him, and asks the chief to marry them. When Joe goes to the volcano, she refuses to let him go alone. They jump together, and the volcano erupts, throwing them out into the sea. Afloat, Joe tells Patricia about the brain cloud. She recognizes the doctor’s name: he’s her father’s friend. Joe was never dying. He was set up.

What It Gets Right

It knows how a dull, frightening job can make a person sick. It knows how money can buy people’s lives, a little at a time. It lets Patricia say the hardest thing a person can say about herself, that she had a price, and then lets her choose something else. And it ends with two people who were each living someone else’s plan, floating free.

What It Teaches

1. “Nobody feels good”

When Joe says he doesn’t feel well, his boss tells him: “Nobody feels good. After childhood, it’s a fact of life. I feel rotten. So what? I don’t let it bother me. I don’t let it interfere with my job.”

The Decoder’s Card 18, Minimization, is “Sizing your experience down until it can be dismissed.” Waturi’s world has no room for anyone feeling bad, so Joe’s misery becomes his own failing. Many people have worked, or lived, somewhere where feeling bad was treated as a weakness instead of information.

2. A diagnosis with his name already in it

Joe goes to the doctor for help. He comes out with a death sentence, delivered with kindness and good advice. At the very end, he learns it was arranged: the doctor is Graynamore’s friend, and Joe’s “brain cloud” was the price of a mining deal.

The Decoder’s Card F-1, The Diagram with Your Name on It, is “A clinical framework arrives with you already cast in it.” The diagnosis wasn’t about Joe. It was about what someone else needed Joe to do. It’s a comedy, and the stakes are absurd. But many people have been handed a label, by a family, a partner or an institution, that served someone else’s plan better than it served them.

3. “I had a price”

Patricia swore she’d never work for her father. Then he offered her the one thing she wanted, the boat, and she said yes. She says it plainly: “He knew I wanted this boat and he used it and he got me working for him, which I swore I would never do. I feel ashamed because I had a price.”

The Decoder’s Card 8, Financial Superiority, is “Using money as control and leverage.” Her half-sister Angelica says it too: “I’m a grown woman and I live on my father’s money.” Both women have been bought, in different ways, by the same man. Patricia’s honesty is the first step out.

4. “Do the thing you’re scared of doing”

Angelica asks Joe whether he’s ever thought about ending his life. He tells her that some things aren’t her job, and that if she has a choice, she should do the thing she’s afraid of instead. She knows what that is: stop taking her father’s money and leave Los Angeles.

It’s a light film, and this is its most serious moment. If you’re in that place, the thing you’re scared of doing might be reaching out. You can call or text 988 any time.

5. Three women, one actress

DeDe, Angelica, Patricia: one is scared, one is lost, one is brave. The film casts the same woman as all three, as if to say they’re the same person at different stages of waking up.

It’s a romantic idea, and a little bit of a trick: the three women are mostly there for Joe’s journey. But Patricia gets the last word. She chooses Joe, and she refuses to let him jump alone. She stops working for her father, and starts working for her own life.

Waking Up, Side by Side

	Shirley Valentine (1989)	Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)	Groundhog Day (1993)
What kept them asleep	A kitchen, and a marriage	A job, a boss, and fear	His own contempt
What woke them	A trip to Greece	A diagnosis that was a lie	The same day, again and again
Who arranged it	She did	A rich man, for a deal	No one ever says

Three fables from the same few years about someone who wakes up. Only in Joe Versus the Volcano was the whole thing arranged by someone else, for money.

If You Grew Up on This

Many readers found this film years after it came out, and still quote it. Nothing on this page asks you to stop loving it. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Have you worked, or lived, where feeling bad was treated as your failing?
Have you been given a label that served someone else’s plan?
Have you had a price? What did it buy, and what did it cost?
What’s the thing you’re scared of doing?
Who arranged your life, and when did you start arranging it yourself?

Patricia admitted she had a price. Then she chose something no one could buy.

You’re the audience now. Your life is yours to arrange.