[Movie Review] WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY
Suicide is a pretty touchy subject in our society, and filmmakers are usually very careful about they handle it. The studio even insisted that my campus cinema director read an anti-suicide statement before this film began. I had never even heard of Wristcutters: A Love Story until my school decided to have an advanced screening of it. My feelings on this thing are pretty mixed, so bear with me while I sort them out.
To start, this thing has a pretty kickass premise: a guy named Zia(Patrick Fugit) kills himself, and rather than passing straight to hell, he ends up in this odd sort of purgatory. It looks like everyday life, only the colors are washed out and no one is able to smile. He works at a shitty pizza parlor and rooms with a fatass who keeps whining about Zia’s general laziness. The initial introduction to this purgatory is easily the most interesting section of the film, as we are introduced to several characters and shown how each one “offed” themselves. I loved the visual touch of having the characters bear visible wounds of their suicides. At one point, we meet a cop who shot himself in the head, and we see the gaping hole in his head when he removes his cop hat. After Zia finds out that his girlfriend Desiree(Leslie Bibb) has killed herself, he ends up on a road trip through purgatory to find her.
A movie like this will live or die on the casting, but this flick has one bright spot and a lot of dead weight. The bright spot is Shea Whigham as a Russian rocker named Eugene. The guy has the biggest laughs in the movie, especially a GREAT flashback scene where we see how he talks his distraught little brother out of a suicide attempt. A recurring bit about what happens when you drop something on the passenger side floor of Eugene’s car was a great sight gag, and Eugene’s reactions to this gag were hilarious. Fugit is serviceable as Zia, although I could see somebody like Ryan Gosling going absolutely apeshit with a role like this. Another actor that I could have done without would be Shannyn Sossamon as Mikal, a girl who claims to be in purgatory by accident and is seeking out the “people in charge” to plead her case to be sent back to the land of the living. It’s not that she does a bad job here, but Sossamon doesn’t sink her teeth into this role. Again, I could see someone else making this role something special, but she seems content to phone it in. If I could, I probably would have replaced her with Evan Rachel Wood. Leslie Bibb does nothing save for have an absolutely awful haircut(back away from the scissors, honey), and Will Arnett(yay!) shows up for an extended cameo near the end that had me scratching my head more than laughing.
The movie starts out as a very interesting idea that just turns into a pretty dull flick, and I was more disappointed than entertained. I swear, I was so excited during the first twenty minutes, thinking that I was watching something truly unique, and then it just went completely bananas(and not in a good way) in the film’s second act. The characters get completely sidetracked from their goal of finding Desiree and end up in some weird cult camp(led by Tom Waits, looking confused as hell) where miracles happen all of the time. We are treated to numerous instances of said miracles while Zia whines about not being able to do any. I just kept wondering, “When is this film going to get back on track?” This little detour did nothing except muddle the film the hell up. I could literally feel the interest drain out of my body as this crap unfolded onscreen. In the end, I left the theater bummed that the film couldn’t follow through on the promise that it displayed in the beginning. This is beginning to sound like a broken record in my reviews of late, but once again, I’ve had to sit through a film that didn’t know where the hell it was trying to go or what it was trying to say. This film’s ending could have had one hell of an emotional punch had I actually given two craps about Zia and his journey.
I can see how people would enjoy this film. I had to tally the comment cards afterwards, and I was STUNNED at how many 10s, 9s, and 8s that I saw marked on the 1-10 scale. I’m sure that some people will probably enjoy this thing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them.
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