Before I start any discussion on this film, I’d like to state that I will never be watching it again. Not because it was bad, but because I dehydrated myself from crying. I’m definitely open to input from others; am I just a sad and obsessive Daniel Radcliffe/Harry Potter fan? Was it not really that sad? Was my lengthy outburst just part of a lockdown meltdown? Very difficult to tell. It was my boyfriend’s idea to watch it and I don’t know if I can forgive him.

It’s a survival film based on a true story. Daniel plays the Israeli traveler Yossi Ghinsberg who is enthusiastically (recklessly) backpacking in Bolivia, hoping to travel into the Amazon rain forest. This idea proves to be very ill advised to say the least, especially because him and his two new backpacking friends meet a mysterious Austrian man who claims to have superior knowledge about the rain forest and announces he can take them in there to find gold (?) and that’s who they choose as their guide. This is where the action really starts. Some parts of the first half are like an upbeat travel movie and there are wholesome scenes of the foursome meeting and hanging out with some villagers which are pretty pleasant to watch. The thing is that obviously this can’t continue and before we know it the Austrian man, Karl, is shooting a monkey down from a tree for them to roast and eat. He passes Yossi an arm to chew on. Whilst this is all pretty disturbing, the sound effects in this part are OUTRAGEOUS and I managed to find the funny side of what would eventually be a film possibly more upsetting than Titanic.

Things start to go downhill quickly as it comes to light that the lads aren’t very well prepared for the trek. One of the backpackers, Marcus, seems to think loafers are an appropriate choice of footwear for hiking in the forest and as you can imagine this doesn’t really pan out well for him. His feet are absolutely destroyed before long and it starts to become clear that he’s not going to be able to walk the trip as planned. They build a raft to travel down the river, and the American backpacker, Kevin, gets too big for his boots and disobeys Karl’s orders thinking he knows better, putting them all in danger. This is when I started to feel very annoyed. Unsurprisingly, Kevin and Karl have a fall out and Karl announces that he’ll go no further with them; he’s going to do the three day walk back to La Paz. Kevin and Yossi are determined to carry on and it’s decided that there’s no way Marcus can do much more on his broken feet. Subsequently, a frankly ridiculous decision is made; Marcus and Karl will walk back to the village, and Kevin and Yossi will carry on down the river on the raft, having been warned profusely by Karl NOT TO GO INTO THE CANYON BECAUSE IT IS VERY DANGEROUS. (Note: I want to clarify here that whilst researching the true story, it came to light that the film interpretation may not have been completely accurate so I’m not judging any of the real people involved, just the fake ones.)

From here, things go from bad to f****** devastating. Quite obviously, they end up in the canyon and Yossi gets washed up on some rocks with no map or backpack. Saying much more about the plot of the film would ruin it, so I’ll talk about the other things instead. Some critics felt Daniel Radcliffe didn’t have a lot to work with and that he wasn’t able to do much with the material but I think my emotional reaction proves otherwise. If he wasn’t any good and I wasn’t invested in his character’s survival I don’t think I would have been quite as upset as I was. He manages to be utterly heartbreaking and vulnerable one minute and tenacious the next making him a perfect hero, but it can’t be ignored that the entire second half of the film is utter torture porn. So many bad things happen consecutively that as I was watching it I found myself wanting to beg the directors to give him a break. If you like incredibly tense survival films, have no personal connection to Daniel Radcliffe and you’re not upset by gross body stuff (the mangled feet aren’t the only thing to contend with; I’ll say one word – worms) you might like Jungle. The rain forest looks beautiful, the score is good and the ending is oddly uplifting. It’s definitely not all bad, but I don’t think my little heart can take seeing my childhood hero emaciated and hallucinating. Add lockdown into the mix, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

*On the off chance you want to put yourself through this, you can rent it on Amazon Prime for 99p, or buy it for £1.99 if you feel crunching through questionably-cooked monkey flesh has lots of rewatchability potential.