Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Transforming a Taboo Subject into a Tender Film, May 3, 2005
Lone Scherfig is a Danish director with a keen sense of character development that allows her to create a film about suicide and cancer into a lovely comedy/drama that walks the thin line of credibility and taste with complete assurance and success. Co-written with Anders Thomas Jensen WILBUR (WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF) is a story that not only appears to be an absurd topic for a film much less a comedy (albeit a dark comedy), it is a tale about family, relationships, human needs, and love that ably touches us at every turn.
Gloomy Glasgow, Scotland is the setting (cinematographer Jørgen Johansson never lets us forget the impact of the weather on the story) and the primary stage is a Used Bookstore owned by brothers Wilbur (Jamie Sives) and Harbour (Adrian Rawlins), the only remnant of their recently departed father's estate. The store is a shambles with Harbour buying more books than he sells: he is that kind of a compassionate person. Wilbur has spent his life trying unsuccessfully to commit suicide since the brothers' mother's death when they were children. We slowly learn that the mother favored Wilbur and while Wilbur's presence hold a strange magnetic attraction for women, Wilbur is unable to partner. He tries suicide by overdose, hanging, jumping off rooftops, slitting his wrists, etc only to be constantly saved by his loving brother Harbour.
Wilbur is in therapy with a chain-smoking doctor Horst (Mads Mikkelson) assisted by a zany, man-desperate nurse Moira (Julia Davis) who even courts suicide victims such as Wilbur in her need for a man. Harbour runs the bookstore, one of his steady clients being Alice (Shirley Henderson), a nurse's aide at the hospital where she cleans floors to support her and her pre-teen daughter Mary (Lisa McKinlay), a committed book lover. Alice visits the bookstore daily to sell books she has gleaned at the hospital to the always receptively warm Harbour. When Alice looses her job at the hospital she is hired by Harbour to organize the bookstore and soon Harbour and Alice fall in love and marry in a Chinese restaurant in a hilarious scene organized by the waiter (Chun-Wah Tsang) whose brogue is thicker than anyone else's! Harbour, Alice, and Mary have found happiness and Alice insists that Wilbur move in with them.
The 'family' works (with Alice and Wilbur having an encounter which bonds them closely) until Harbour is discovered to have pancreatic cancer and reluctantly begins chemotherapy with Dr. Horst. The way this crucial development alters the lives of everyone is the climax of the story and while it is fairly predictable, the writing is so fine that to give further details would be an injustice to the viewers.
Each of the relatively unknown actors gives radiantly alive and complex performances. Wilbur would seem a difficult persona to tolerate, but in Jamie Sives' hands (and of course with the intelligent direction of Scherfig) this miscreant character has us firmly in his hand from the beginning. This is an intelligent and warmly tender film that explores the human need for love and for belonging. The only criticism is the lack of English subtitles: the pitch perfect Scottish accents manage to bury much of the bright dialogue for non-Scotsmen's ears! Very Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 05
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You'll treat her just right for me, won't you?", May 27, 2005
Wilber Wants to Kill Himself opens with the troubled and disturbed title character Wilber (the hunky Jamie Sives), trying to gas himself in his kitchen. It's a grim premonition for what is to come, as Wilber tries to commit suicide several more times - once by hanging, and once from slashing his wrists in the bath.
He's full of pent-up attitude and anger; and he's so obnoxious that the local hospital's suicidal support group doesn't even want him attending their regular meetings any more. Even his older brother Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) isn't quite sure what to do with him. He'd like to employ Wilbur in his used bookstore, which the two siblings inherited from their late father.
Harbour would also like to be able to go a week without Wilbur having one of his suicidal "episodes." The older brother has reached the age where he wants to meet a nice girl, settle down, and have a life of his own. On the advice of Moira (Julia Davis), the support group leader and hospital nurse, Wilbur moves in with Harbour, upstairs of the bookshop.
Meanwhile, Alice (Shirley Henderson), a single mum and janitor at the hospital becomes a regular visitor at the bookstore. She keeps any discarded books she can find around the hospital and sells them at the brothers' store occasionally, hence becoming familiar with Harbour and Wilbur, more so when she interrupts one of Wilbur's suicide attempts. She and Harbour get married, only to discover Harbour has health problems too, more physical than mental.
The perpetually grumpy and snarky Wilber is gradually drawn to the sensitive Alice. He doesn't much like other girls, but there's something terribly attractive about Alice. He also finds a kindred soul in Alice's young daughter, Mary (Lisa McKinlay), whose positive attitude works wonders on him. As Wilbur becomes more involved with Alice and Mary his suicidal tendencies start diminish and he begins a new lease on life. He even encounters a suicidal stranger whom he prevents from drowning at the last moment.
Set in Glasgow, the film has a gritty and pervasive realism, which lends itself well to this type of subject matter. And it's all a lot less dour and more watchable than one might expect. Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig instills her characters with a type of lovable, comical irony that effectively works as a counterpoint to the seriously grim subject matter.
The problem is that script is often too slow and it has a kind of a grayish, slow, and dull over all feel to it. The story takes too long to get off the ground, and Wilber's reasons for wanting to suicide in the first place are never really adequately explained. Most viewers will probably be annoyed that he's wasting money by needlessly chalking up the bill on the taxpayer funded National Health Service.
However, the movie is certainly worth watching for the appealing cast. One can almost believe that Sives and Rawlins are brothers, while the oft-used Henderson is solid, as usual. But the film isn't quite sure what it wants to be - It has the elements of either a weeping tragedy or a dark comedy, yet somehow finds a middle route that makes it neither.
Wilber Wants to Kill Himself offers an interesting approach to this controversial subject matter, and at times it is fairly didactic and edifying, but it's also strangely non-committal about most of the issues. The story is involving enough, but it doesn't really go anywhere until the last half-hour when Wilbur is forced to confront the realities of the world.
With his brother now dying and a woman with whom he has unaccountably fallen on love with, Wilber realizes that he must finally take on real responsibility, which actually comes as a bit of a shock. Thus, before our eyes we see him grow from a selfish, troubled, and petulant boy, into a conscientious, reliable, and dependable man. Mike Leonard May 05.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bill Forsythe meets Ingmar Bergman, April 19, 2005
Despite the quirky title, this is not a "black comedy" in the "Harold and Maude" vein (although the opening scene in "Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself" IS suspiciously similar to the opening scene in "Harold and Maude"!) The film is actually an interesting blend of tearjerker, subtle adult sex comedy and what used to be referred to as (forgive me) "heartwarming family drama" (but without the schmaltz). Think a Scottish "Terms of Endearment", with more believable characters and less mugging from the actors. The Danish director and her mostly Scottish cast does an impressive job of delivering a fairly large number of characters but still managing to make us care about what happens to all of them; the type of skilled ensemble work that puts this one in the Mike Leigh/Atom Egoyan league. Highly recommended. P.S. For the sake of those who have not seen this film yet, shame on all the reviewers trumpeting major "spoilers" in the first paragraph of thier reviews!
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