Customer Reviews

Wristcutters - A Love Story

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Most romantic comedies take place in... you know, the world of the living. They rarely star dead people. And not suicides, either.

But "Wristcutters: A Love Story" is not going to be tied down by that. This delicious, dark little cult film is about people who have committed suicide, and are now stuck in a limbo zone that is just like the living world, but less appealing. It's also dark, funny and poignant -- everything you want in a very original little indie movie.

Because of a breakup, Zia (Patrick Fugit) has decided that life is no longer worth living. He cleans his house, slits his wrists -- and finds himself in a strange twilight-zone with no sunshine, smiles, or appetizing food, and entirely populated by suicides -- think a Midwestern small town, but more depressing. He eventually gets a job, a nasty roommate, and befriends Eugene (Shea Whigham) a likably bombastic Russian rocker.

But then Zia learns from a new suicide that his girlfriend, Desiree (Leslie Bibb) has also offed herself. So he and Eugene bundle into Eugene's horrible old car, and start a road trip to find her -- picking up the pretty, feisty Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who says she's been placed there mistakenly. The odd trio rattles through this suicide world, until they stumble across a strange camp in the wilderness...

I first heard about "Wristcutters" a long while ago, on myspace -- but in the months that followed, it just sort of floated in a limbo of its own. Pretty frustrating, but Goran Dukic actually makes it worth waiting for -- it's a quirky and dark indie comedy, a tragedy, and a love story all in one.

As you can probably guess, the movie's main message is that you should live a life worth enjoying, and love someone worth loving. Yeah, the core of it is a guy who loses the girl, kills himself, tries to regain the girl, and falls in love with the worthier choice -- all while wondering if love is still possible for those whose hearts have stopped.

But that potentially soppy message is wrapped up in clever little quirks in Wristcutterville (Zia works at "Kamikaze Pizza") or the various deaths of the people who live there (Eugene electrocuted himself to get the crowd to pay attention). It feels pleasantly, wistfully warped -- both with macabre humour (the hole-in-the-head cop) and delicious dialogue ("I'm not going out tonight. It just makes me depressed." "So, what you gonna do? Kill yourself?").

And you gotta admit, this postmodern Purgatorio is an interesting concept -- it's portrayed with a sort of low-budget magical realism. Suicide wounds, pale faces, bleak landscape, and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is a popular tune. It's pretty fitting that the place for those who have given up hope is a place where hope and joy are nonexistant.

It also has a very pleasant, poignant ending -- yeah, it seems like a bit of a cop-out, but somehow by the time we got there, I didn't mind. It ties in with the lesson of the movie, and the poignant little love between Zia and Mikal.

Fugit is a likably confused, sweet character who is just a bit dense, since it takes him awhile to figure out what a great, funny girl Mikal is. And Whigham -- whose character was partly based on Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz -- rules all the scenes he's in, as one of the few suicides who still has his vitality, libido and humour intact ("Everyone knows that man in back does not have c**k").

Sad, quirky and poignant, "Wristcutters: A Love Story" is an offbeat love/road-trip movie in the land of suicides -- it's a brilliantly warped little cult movie, and definitely worth seeing.

A heartwarming romantic comedy that's about the afterworld for those who commit suicide and wind up in a gloomier world than our own. The movie is funny and poignant and, although, offensive to just about every group of people, it's light and hopeful at the same time. A gem of a movie and a definitely deserving of its Sundance win.

This film goes far beyond the short story "Neller's Happy Campers" by Etgar Keret found in The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories. It is about the weird world that suicides go to. (A world just like this one only worse).
You will see some strange things on the journey you take in this film with the characters.
The acting is excellent.
The soundtrack ranges from the otherworldly to Eskimo throat singing. (You've got to hear it)
It is a very dark comedy but has a surprisingly light touch and a goofy feel-good style. It is hard to describe. It is like "Crossroads" meets "Road Warrior" but everybody is already dead.

Thinking about suicide? Think again. And watch WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY before you pull out that razor blade, swallow those pills, or pop that gun barrel into your mouth. The world beyond is not what you want!

Zia (Patrick Fugit) is so depressed about his girlfriend leaving him, he feels he cannot go on. One slit of the wrists and it's bye-bye boy. But what lay beyond for Zia? Well, it ain't any prettier. In fact, it's downright depressing. No laughter. No smiles. An empty road full of empty lives lay ahead. Or so it seems.

Zia runs into another lost soul named Eugene (Shea Whigham, Tigerland) who has a car and the two spark up an unusual relationship. Zia pines only for his lost love Desiree (Leslie Bibb, Talladega Nights) while Eugene wanders aimlessly (or so it seems) through this netherworld. That is, until Zia finds out that Desiree has committed suicide, too! Yes! Love cannot be denied, even in this depressing purgatory. But how to find her? Of course. Road trip! Zia and Eugene set out to find Desiree but run into several speed-bumps. Headlights that don't work. No air conditioning. And even a black hole that exists under the passenger's seat that swallows up sunglasses or anything else dropped in its direction. But none of this prepares Zia for his run-in with Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang), another lost soul that they find hitchhiking along an empty road. But Mikal claims she didn't commit suicide, and is looking for the people that "run this place." The journeys of the threesome interlock in unusual ways, including a romance that will play itself out in the end of all ends.

Most interesting about Wristcutters is that symbolism plays a huge role. And that symbolism is actually quite funny. The fact that no one is able to smile is very funny considering the circumstances surrounding the deaths of those that are in this unhappy place. Parasailers are seen as enforcement officers (archangels?) And whoever does run this place doesn't want these souls to leave (which includes allowing suicides to happen a second time). There are also entire families of suiciders who help prove that mental illness can be genetic. And Eugene's death by pouring "Dead Guy Ale" over his electric guitar is something that is sure to elicit chuckles from just about everyone.

Eugene is not as he seems ("You must have friends in high places") nor is just about everyone in the film. The ending certainly makes this abundantly clear (which I won't spoil for those who decide to watch this). But I will say that I'm glad they decided to go with the ending on the DVD and not the alternate; that would've been TRULY depressing instead of depressingly funny.

Even with its dark comedy, Wristcutters isn't going to be for everyone. The comedy isn't in your face or, sometimes, even self-evident. Occasionally you have to dig deep to find the witticisms but find them you will.

There are some weak points to the film, most notably the production standards and some of the very lame sets, but these can be overlooked (if somewhat difficultly) by enjoying the deathly guffaws.

As you most certainly should be able to discern from the title of the '09 Indie film 'Wristcutters - A Love Story' this is a dark, edgy comedy that will entertain that portion of the audience that can get past being offended by the title and accompanying subject matter. While watching there were several moments that I actually had to pause and wonder whether or not there was something wrong with me for enjoying this. Well that's a question I wasn't able to answer with any degree of certainty, but I do know that this highly original film was well worth the watch. Kudos!

My sister had been looking for this dvd for a long while so I ordered it for her for Christmas, she was so happy she cried. It's a sweet movie. It got there on time and in great condition.

This movie may not be for everyone, but after watching it for the time, I knew I had to buy it - and I NEVER buy movies. Just as it says in the title, it's a love story, but a very dark one. It's got dry and dark humor, basically a sad plot, but it's fantastic, and unlike any other movies I've seen.

Also, the shipping was fast and accurate. Great purchase!

Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukic, 2006)

I was somehow unaware until the main titles were rolling on Wristcutters: A Love Story that it was based on Etgar Keret's graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze, which has been on my list of stuff to go digging for at the library for just about ever. So as soon as the movie was over, I went digging, and so I'll be comparing the two side by side (see below for PK review), and pretty much by definition there's going to be a lot of comparing of the two. Especially where a graphic novel adaptation is concerned, I'm always expecting slavish devotion to the source material (unless stuff goes on the novel it's simply not possible to film without millions of dollars' worth of special effects, unless you're Zack Snyder). And somehow, despite knowing this will never happen, I always end up wondering to myself what on earth director X and screenwriter Y were thinking when they decided to change detail Z, which doesn't save time or money, but ends up confusing the hell out of the viewer. I got a lot more of that in Wristcutters; it was only after reading Pizzeria Kamikaze that a few quirks in the personalities of the characters made sense. (I will give Dukic one huge bonus, though, for making Eugene into a failed musician, because this movie's soundtrack is everything that so many crappy indie soundtracks have tried to be recently and failed.)

Plot: depressed emo kid Zia (Deadbirds' Patrick Fugit), whose girlfriend has just broken up with him, decides to kill himself. He succeeds, and when he wakes up in the afterlife, "it's a lot like Tel Aviv, only a little bit worse." He finds himself a job at Pizzeria Kamikaze, whose logo is wonderful, and PK's owner helps him find a place to live. Unfortunately it comes with an insane Austrian roommate (ER's Abraham Benrubi), and so Zia spends a lot of his time out at a local bar. It's there he meets Erik (Splinter's Shea Wigham), an Eastern European musician. The two of them begin to pal around, and when Zia finds out that his ex (The Midnight Meat Train's Leslie Bibb) killed herself about a month after he did, he enlists Erik (and Erik's car) and heads out on a grand quest to reclaim his lost love. Along the way, the two of them meet hitchhiker Mikal (Catacombs's Shannyn Sossamon), who throws every expected monkeywrench into the journey.

The big change here is the characters' names and nationalities. The names are just kind of confusing, and that's what I was referring to in the opening paragraph; why bother changing the characters' names, of all things? The nationality thing is a little more problematic, because some of the jokes come off as less funny (or in the case of Erik's phobia of Arabs, which at least makes sense for an Israeli, outright racist), and some of the characters' tics or modes of expression make a little less sense. If they share a culture, rather than being from three wildly disparate cultures, they have at least something in common that will allow them that first bonding, and the lack of it here jars a bit, where it all works perfectly in the book from which this is adapted. (And, jeez, that ending.)

Not to say that Wristcutters is a bad movie. In fact, it's a pretty good one, really. Fugit is one of those actors who does a fine, fine job with whatever material he's given, and if you haven't yet experienced the joy that is Shea Whigham, do yourself a big favor and check out a silly, but loads of fun, direct-to-video release from 2008 called Splinter, where he steals the show as effortlessly as if he were the lead. His performance here shows he's not just a one-trick pony; this is about as different a role as it could have been, and he's just as good here. Aside from a few odd juxtapositions and problems that come from breaking with the source material, this is a solid little flick with a lot to like about it; it's worth checking out. *** ½

While I don't think this movie will blow anyone away, I do think it's a good story (based on a long short story or novella, by Etgar Keret - whose short stories I highly, highly recommend)and an interesting take on suicide. By focusing on the humorously monotonous afterlives of a couple characters (all of whom are very likeable) and then adding an eccentric Tom Waits (another genuius whose body of work I highly recommend)we get a unique take on suicide, friendship, love, life and afterlife. If you're the increasingly rare type who can enjoy a movie without supermodels and explosions, then I think you'll probably enjoy Wristcutters - A love story.

Oh, and as an added bonus, the music of gogol bordello makes up a large part of the soundtrack (this movie actually served as my introduction to both Keret and Gogol - and by proxy Eugene Hutz... yet another genius)

I loved this movie.

Whenever I mention the title to anyone, they kind of make a face. And I follow it up with, "No no, it's a really good film. It's a love story. With a lot of dark humor." No body really gets it until they watch it though.

I'm not going to spoil it for anyone but it's a very touching story. I haven't read the story it was based on, but I'll have to now.