“Wristcutters: A Love Story” makes a choice early on to not delve into suicide with great depth. Like the underrated “Virgin Suicides” it presents the circumstances around the act without claiming to understand it. This is probably a smart choice from an audience connection standpoint. Oddly enough, “Wristcutters” works as kind of a melancholy, feel good, romantic comedy. The film manages to be quirky without being pretentious, which is a difficult balance.
Love, Suicide, and Film
It’s not often that the cheerful subject matter of suicide manifests itself on celluloid. Having been more famously handled in films like “Ordinary People” and “Night, Mother”, it is often relegated to subplots and treated with little insight. While hopelessness, loss, psychic pain, and a general lack of interest are often symptoms of suicide, it is difficult to really determine the motivations behind the desire to be alone for all time without experiencing it firsthand. Quite frankly, it’s not something that a lot of people want to think about or really explore, preferring to shop for handbags and watch the latest home renovation show.
A "Wizard of Oz" Universe Where No One Smiles
Zia (Patrick Fugit) wakes up one morning, fully cleans his apartment, and slashes his wrists in the bathroom sink. Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of things for Zia. He wakes up in an afterlife that greatly resembles his current life only “slightly crappier”. It’s a washed out grayish world where no one can smile and all the inhabitants have committed suicide.
Zia eventually befriends Russian cynical Rock Star Eugene (Shea Whigham) whose entire family committed suicide leaving them intact in the afterlife. Word comes in that a past love from Zia’s living life, Desiree (Leslie Bibb) has offed herself recently and is somewhere in this dreary newfound world. Zia and Eugene set off to find Desiree in a crapbox car with a bizarre, unexplained black hole under the passenger seat.
It isn’t long before they stumble across a gum-chewing hitchhiker with a penchant for amusing political vandalism, Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), with whom Zia strikes up a connection.
Goran Dukic Does a Great Job in the Director's Chair
Croatian-born writer/director Goran Dukic has brought a dry humour and melancholic tone to “Wristcutters: A Love Story”. While the film is often bizarre, it stays grounded with believable connections and logical reactions to unexplained phenomena. There is an aesthetic appeal to the film throughout that assists in maintaining the necessary somber tone. Discarded couches, makeshift huts, and deserted landscapes add to the nomadic isolation these characters rightfully feel in their suicidal endeavors.
Shannyn Sossamon and Patrick Fugit Shine
One of the greatest strengths of this film is the understated performances from the three leads and solid writing to back them up. Dukic has fleshed out three fully realized people whose connections and interactions are believable from the getgo. It makes the dark subject matter, and “Wizard of Oz” journey that much more palatable and cathartic. Sossamon is surprisingly strong here. Having recently starred in crap like “One Missed Call” and the dreadful “Catacombs”, it is nice to see her take on a role that requires a bit of range. She plays sassy and disappointed well in “Wristcutters” and is entirely likable. Whigham does a good job playing the tactless Russian horndog, garnering the majority of the laughs in the film. Holding it all together is Patrick Fugit, who mixes deep sadness with youthful optimism rather effectively.
A Bizarre Indy Melancholic Feel-Good Movie
“Wristcutters” won’t be for everyone. It is a slow and often bizarre film that can really only be compared to the little seen “Arizona Dream”. It is however, a gem of a film that deserves some recognition for being a fully realized and emotionally true indie feature. One of the better indie entries in 2007, like Starting out in the Evening.
