MOVIE · 1990

Joe Versus the Volcano

ComedyRomance102 min

Tom Hanks is Joe Banks, a drained office worker and committed hypochondriac who’s told he has six months to live. He quits his dead-end job, finally asks out a co-worker, and then accepts an offer from a mysterious businessman that sends him to a South Pacific island, where he’s expected to jump into a volcano. Along the way, Joe keeps meeting women with Meg Ryan’s face: first a timid co-worker, then the free-spirited daughter of his benefactor, and finally Patricia, the yacht owner charged with taking him to his fate. Manhattan office malaise gives way to storybook travel, odd rituals, and a romance built on fatalism and impulse.