So, Jumanji. I guess this isn’t a full analysis because I’m not like planning this out in advance or anything, but I just want to drop my thoughts on this movie yknow? This movie certainly isn’t perfect, but I live very close to where certain scenes in the movie were shot, so therefore I have a pretty close connection to it. Fun fact, I see Parrish Shoes wall art almost every time I go into town! They put it up for the movie but never took it down/cleaned the wall, kind of as a landmark. When I was little and before I’d seen this movie, I thought that Parrish Shoes was an actual shoe company due to this. But yeah Jumanji is sort of a cultural phenomenon around here, even the newer movies.
For reference: Everything I say here is just my personal interpretation of the film. Also halfway through I decided this isn’t going to be a general overview of the film but moreso a theme essay.
TW for mental health related stuff, mainly PTSD and childhood trauma. And murder.
As a kid I did NOT pick up on the themes of mental health. Pretty much each character is suffering from some kind of mental health issue, and it’s not played for laughs, which is kind of uncommon in movies from this time period. I know it’s kind of common knowledge at this point that the hunter dude is played by the same man as Alan’s father and is supposed to represent him to Alan (this is played quite on the nose at the end of the movie), but Alan really doesn’t have a good relationship with his dad. Alan is a victim of bullying and has a lot of pressure put onto him due to the family name, which is stressful for him, but his dad doesn’t understand and therefore undermines all of Alan’s struggles and even does things that might make them worse, like forcing him to attend Cliffside School For Boys. Even if Alan is as grandiose as his father thinks, going to this school would still not be good for his health. Of course, Alan doesn’t have to go to this school because he gets sucked into Jumanji, and has to spend 26 years trying to survive in the jungle. To me, at least, this represents the stress and fear and anxiety Alan would have had to deal with if his life continued the way it had as a young boy; a childhood wasted surviving in the jungle. (Speaking of which, how did Alan survive that long anyways as a 11-13 year old? What a trooper!) This doesn’t really connect to the former points, but we also see that having to endure the suffering in the jungle (or, in this metaphor, being made to grow up too fast and have his anxiety worsen) hasn’t made Alan any more mature. In fact, multiple times, it’s mentioned that he’s still very childish. Sometimes it’s played off for laughs, like when he is revealed to not being able to drive a car or when he holds onto the grudge of Billy Jessop when Sarah has completely forgotten who he is, but other times it’s actually quite serious. Like when Judy asks what Alan is going to do with his life now that he’s back, he has no idea. He says something along the lines of “I’ll just start back off where I left. I wonder if Ms. [Teacher] still teaches the sixth grade.” He hasn’t matured… at all. Mentally, he’s still a sixth grade boy, just with a crap ton of trauma and 26 years of wasted life.
The other characters, Judy, Peter, and Sarah all mainly seem to suffer from PTSD. Sarah’s is the most obvious, as she goes to therapy for her PTSD, and her therapist is trying to convince her that Alan was in fact murdered, and the bats and watching him be sucked into the board game were figments of her imagination to protect her from the trauma. It seems as if Sarah herself doesn’t fully believe this notion, but since it’s more easily explainable and more easy to heal from, she goes with that. When she calls up her therapist, telling her about another “episode” she’s having, it implies that Sarah has PTSD induced flashbacks from this trauma, which I found quite surprising for the movie to nod to, seeing as this is based off a children’s book about a magic board game. In the fight Alan and Sarah have before the stampede arrives, it’s even mentioned how Sarah is shunned by society for her mental health condition, as no one comes to her birthday party and she had to change her name to fit in with society. While the former might seem small, for a teenager who has just watched a friend of hers die, it has a horrible effect on her. Like Alan, her trauma has wasted her life for 26 years.
Judy and Peter have lesser cases, or at least aren’t explored into as much as the two adults, which make sense. They both also seem to suffer from PTSD from the death of their parents, which manifests in different ways for the both of them. In Judy, it presents itself in compulsive lying (although her lying seems to be quite exaggerated and mainly played for laughs), and Peter’s in selective mutism, both of which can be results of childhood trauma/PTSD.
At the end of the movie, all of this is undone. Alan and Sarah go back to the past, and get to do everything all over, as many survivors of childhood trauma wish they could. Judy and Peter have no recollection of any of this, and their parents never die. Even Alan’s father improves within a matter of minutes, and decides to be a good father to Alan and not pressure him into living up to the family name. (How did that happen, anyways? Did the board game somehow have an effect on him too? Was the writing team not thinking?) All their trauma has been reversed, but, at least Alan and Sarah, still have to live with the memories of how things could have gone.
Also, fun fact! I’m kind of into true crime and if the Alan Parrish case happened IRL I’m pretty sure that it would have either been ruled a homicide or gone unsolved. If you want me to become Stephanie Harlowe and make a post about how the Alan Parrish investigation would have gone down I’ll do so.
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