Wristcutters: A Love Story

source: Wristcutters: A Love Story

When his girlfriend Desiree (Leslie Bibb) breaks up with him, the heartbroken Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide cutting his wrists. He awakes in the arid Beyond, a dark place inhabited by suicidal people and worst than the world of the living. He finds a job in the pizzeria Kamikaze, sharing a room with a weird roommate. When Zia meets a former friend, he is informed that Desiree has also committed suicide a couple of months after his death. He befriends the Russian guitarist Eugene (Shea Whigham), who died electrocuted in a rock concert, and together they decide to seek out Desiree. While driving in a lonely road, they meet the hitchhiker Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who is chasing the People in Charge to clarify that she is not a suicidal, but a victim of OD. In their journey, they befriend Kneller (Tom Waitts), who owns a camping, and Eugene falls in love for Nanuk (Mikal P. Lazarev). "Weistcutters: A Love Story" is an original and surrealist road movie. The pleasant story is weird, but a great entertainment due to the chemistry among the lead trio - Shannyn Sossamon, Patrick Fugit and Shea Whigham. The conclusion is excellent, open to interpretation of the trip of Zia. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): "Paixão Suicida" ("Suicide Passion")

This movie has certainly got an interesting concept. All suiciders living their afterlife together in a limbo-like place and stuff... Visuals are also good enough to make this film worth a 7.5/10. But I really think the last 15 minutes (the king and the gathering for the great miracle) just ruined the whole movie. It suddenly went from dark humor to absurdity, then ended up like a cheap Benn Stiller style romantic comedy. The film pushed the limits of persuasiveness for a guaranteed happy ending. That was simply unnecessary. Also there were some characters in the movie that seemed interesting and worth getting deeper into their own story, but instead, were just left as side characters. I expected more from the movie title and IMDb ranking and got disappointed. But it still is a nice movie to watch and entertain your evening nevertheless.

Cases like these are so frustrating. It's like falling in love with a pretty smile, only to find the target of your affection has no heart. I wanted to like this one, because of the idea and because these small productions deserve everyone's attention. Alas, the imaginative backbone that could have offered remarkable chances in the hands of a skillful writer is turned into a generic mess. Some of this is Keret's fault, too. As you probably know, the story is about an afterlife for those who have died by their own hand. The thing is that the world is just like ours, except even more grey and bland. Our main character ends up on a road trip with his Russian friend and a girl who "shouldn't be there", in search of some sense for the events and perhaps a way to find love again. The problem is that the afterlife is not the only thing that depresses the watcher: the total unimaginativeness of the (original) story is the second. So much could have been derived from the setup, but the sad truth is that everything of any importance is shown to us during the first fifteen minutes: Joy Division playing in the bar, no one can smile, everyone carries the scars of their death. After this introduction, it all starts going wrong because nothing else connects with the theme; all sorts of goofy things happen, but they could just as well happen in a Charlie Kaufman -movie or in any reality-twisting comedy. The quirky events, characters and items have no context and quickly turn out to be just there to make the world seem a bit stranger. Yeah, there's a black hole under the car's seat. Yeah, Tom Waits sleeps in the middle of the road. Yeah, one of the characters is an Eskimo who speaks only in guttural sounds. None of this matters, and it's not even funny. Later we are introduced to 'miracles', which are just as boring and out of context as the rest of the material. Not only unimaginative, throughout the movie we get many painful examples of bad writing, like the scene where one of the characters just pops out of the blue to tell the main character (and us) what is actually happening. You DON'T DO THIS, especially not in A MOVIE, A VISUAL MEDIUM! Every writer knows this: maybe someone was just too lazy at some point. The ending, otherwise pretty well modified from the book's, creates at least one major plot hole. The dialog is quite bad and the characters are mostly uninteresting, but some of the blame goes for the actors who seem to spend all the time thinking of their older hits. Fugit is a slightly more depressed version of his William from 'Almost Famous', Sossamon plays the girl from 'The Rules of Attraction', Waits has had many similar roles and Arnett is once again GOB, although it's questionable if he ever plays any other character. The only one with no former references is Shea Wigham, who just goes on to do a really poor man's imitation of Eugene Hutz. Considering that the director knows Hutz personally, it would have been much less painful to give the part to the man himself. But it was an intriguing idea when it started. Shame there's really nothing to cling on to here.

"Wristcutters" had a fantastic cast that drew me in more than the plot. Patrick Fugit had a great role in "Deadbirds", Shea Wigham nailed the horror hero in "Splinter", John Hawkes is a great up-and-comer, and Mark Boone Junior, Will Arnett, and Tom Waits are among the fantastic cameos involved. It had everything going for it, and failed miserably. The new film hype is the "quirky characters falling in love against all odds" arc, a big leap from the hero and heroine. So often you see the type of weird people you wouldn't befriend if your life depended on it becoming heroes of their own quirky movies and their quirky characters fall in love against all quirky odds. The odds in this case is granted an interesting concept, in that Fugit's character commits suicide (hence Wristcutters) and finds himself in a Grey-tinted land where no one smiles. Fugit meets Wigham's character, who is the most interesting in the film. He is a Russian whose entire family killed themselves almost consecutively, and as a result they are still together in whatever world they are in. Quirky events happen and Wigham and Fugit go on a road trip, where "Wristcutters" starts to go downhill. Shannyn Sossaman's character, a hitchhiker who is looking for the Gods of her new home, gets picked up and guess what happens with Fugit and Sossaman. A very interesting concept poorly executed by director Goran Dukic. The cinematography is bland and boring, which one may argue is supposed to match the feel of the film. Still. It's bland and it's boring and completely uncaptivating. The dialog is equally bland, and I offer the same argument I previously stated. The direction and feel of the film came off as lifeless, which again, is not something you want, even in a film about lifelessness. The acting by Fugit is surprisingly mediocre. For the star, he does little to keep our interests. The same with Sossaman, who does nothing with the already bad dialog she's given. The romance between these two is supposed to be our anchor and the lack of chemistry is obvious. The only thing that kept me hooked was a great performance by Wigham (his name is not included on the list of schlocks this movie commits) and a Tom Waits cameo that never seemed to show up. What can I say besides "this is a brilliant idea that ultimately failed". It may strike a certain audience but for a mild-mannered-movie-buff I thought this movie sucked.

I loved every minute of this film, and there are few movies I can say that about in recent years. With an overall tone similar to Eternal Sunshine/Being John Malkovich/Adaptation, this is a Charlie Kaufman inspired movie with wholly unique content. The characters are interesting and virtually instantly likable, particularly Eugene. It is easy to see Partick Fugit's quiet intensity as a clear choice for Zia, innocent but fallen. Tom waits is fun, and Miss Sossamon, though her Winona Rider persona can be uninspiring in other films, is interesting enough to make up for it in this one. Also, the Messiah could not be more perfectly cast. With the slew of films that perpetuate and exacerbate a false idea of romance, this is a love story I can fully get behind.

This is a creative treat that, while boasting of no discernible insight or idealist film-making ambitions, manages thoroughly entertaining – perhaps it is due to the aforementioned low-key approach that Wristcutters fares so well. Balkan director Goran Dukic combines the best of offbeat indie cinema with 'traditional' dark humour, making the film appropriately edgy but never tipping over into 'desperately quirky' like so many "festival type films" fall prey to. In fact, when I sneaked in as a volunteer to a screening during the Stcokholm International Film Festival, the manager presented the film as one of his personal favourites of 2006. This should serve as a mark of its success and indeed I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had. This is highly ironic since both the style and substance of Wristcutters are unspeakably gloomy and sad. Much credit it due to Dukic for making something as tragic as suicide victims into laugh-out-loud catalysts. But the film perhaps belongs to Patrick Fugit who inhabits the protagonist Zia – a young man who slits his wrists in the first scene of the film and ends up in a 'suicide limbo' of sorts, where all people who have taken their own lives are banished. I say 'banished' because this afterlife is an unreasonably gloomy, grey and grainy nowhere-place that is captured remarkably through a seemingly colourless lens that aptly emphasizes the mundane and depressing state. There are barren industries and vast stretches of desert – nothing else. Oh and no one smiles. Ever. Zia leads a dull life in this post-apocalyptic hole until one day he finds out that his ex-girlfriend on earth has also committed suicide and ought to be in the same place as him. He sets out on a road-trip with his friend Eugene (a superbly funny Shea Whigham) – a Russian immigrant who lives with his whole family of suicide victims and soon the two are joined by a beautiful newcomer and hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who claims she got here "by mistake" and is now trying to rectify it by finding the people in charge. Although much fun is to be found in the creatively barren setting, the central triumvirate is possibly one of the most dynamic mix of characters on film in recent years, no hyperbole. Shea Whigham is gloriously hard-boiled and hilarious as Eugene the Russian and enables the director Dukic to reconnect with his Slavic roots. It is both admirable and puzzling that the film manages so funny without resorting to laughter or smiles (there are two smiles throughout the movie, seriously). But 'Wristcutters' has problems: it remains a shallow look at an infinitely more layered issue, suicide. It explores no characters to depth nor does it ever bring up what drove them to taking their own life in the first place. In this way, no interesting philosophical notions are navigated and no insights or messages come through other than an overriding 'Pro-Life' attitude – Pro-Life being for living and against suicide which is punished by an eternity in a perpetually gloomy state, a subtle hell of creative proportions. Thankfully it avoids most of its shortcomings by simply being short and sweet. Of course, this renders Wristcutters: A Love Story an ultimately forgettable little indie romp. 7 out of 10

Where do we end up when we die? What type of hell do we go to if we've "offed ourselves" as the characters in WRISTCUTTERS say? This fanciful movie opens with Fugit's character Zia organizing, cleaning, and straightening his room, readying himself for his death. In the blink of an eye, we see Zia's body on the floor of the bathroom, blood everywhere, and we're transported to a world which is hot, dull, endless, and sad. Zia discovers that everyone in this world has offed themselves, and the physical traits remain. Zia offed himself because of intense sadness caused by his girlfriend Desiree. He's befriended by Eugene, whose whole family is there. There days are filled with drinking, doing odd jobs, and trying to make the time pass. But Zia discovers that his girlfriend has committed suicide and he's on a mission to find her. With Eugene, they roadtrip ... to nowhere, searching for the woman and meet Mikal, who is also on a search, for the PIC: People in Charge. The film follows these characters as they search for something, someone to fill the void that they had when they were alive. The film is well shot with great music and tender moments. The only negative about the film is the writing. It would have been much more interesting to see an arc in Fugit's character, instead, it's rather straightline as everyone around him changes.

I stumbled upon the trailer on the internet, and it looked like it had all the makings of a quirky indie film: an interesting setup, a road trip, Tom Waits, so I was excited to see it, and... I don't know, it just fell kind of flat for me. It was neither all that funny, or all the dramatic, just sort of plodded along. There were whole spans of this movie that were aimless and without spark. The characters never become full or interesting. It's not bad, it's not good, it felt like cinematic purgatory. I just kept waiting for the movie to take off, but then it was over. Patrick Fugit does a good job trying to make an incredibly uncompelling character watchable, and Shea Wigham's a riot when given the chance. Still, you'll spend the movie wishing there had been a more experienced director, crew and a more innovative writer (Charlie Kaufman, vielleicht?)

Bleak film of death and a depressing afterlife. Lots of nice little touches, like with the music - you only pick up on it after talking with people about it. From what I understand not completely faithful to the book, although I didn't read it. Good humor, oddly uplifting due to the romance. Saw this at Sundance this year, was one of the 3 best we saw. Patrick Fugit was brilliant. Shannon was also strong. If you like dark films, you won't be disappointed. Can't comment on technical aspects of film, since i'm not in the industry. Summary: Great cast, good writing. Fun times by all.