The very premise of Goran Dukic's indie film Wristcutters: A Love Story, adapted from a novella by Israeli author Etgar Keret, leaves me cold. Imagine you've killed yourself to escape life's suffering only to find yourself in an afterlife that's much the same, only worse. Perhaps my irritation stems from the face that I'm not a believer in reincarnation and can't suspend my disbelief. I think, though, that it's more a sense of righteous indignation. Let the dead be dead. It's unfair to ask them to have bad jobs and family fights all over again.
Zia (Patrick Fugit) is the film's main suicide: our protagonist. In the opening scene, he meticulously cleans his room before slicing his wrists on the clean bathroom floor. Dead, Zia find himself still very much alive, in a land populated with other suicides. They have a morbid sense of humor - for sure - and the colors of the landscape are all washed out. Machines are all broken, food resembles slop, and no one can smile. The music on the jukebox features songs of other suicides: Ian Curtis's
Love Will Tear Us Apart, for instance.
As if he'd moved to a new town or gone to college, Zia has to find his way in this new universe. He gets a bad job delivering pizza, he gets snubbed by attractive female suicides, and he makes a friends with an Eastern European suicide, Eugene (Shea Wigham), who has been joined by his entire family. Like much of the film, the montage sequence in which they all narrate their various deaths is mildly entertaining.
Shannyn Sossaman in a scene from "Wristcutters: A Love Story"
Zia and Eugene take a road trip - and despite the fact they are dead, their sardonic banter sounds familiar. The hipster chick they pick up on the side of the road (Shannyn Sossaman) insists that she did not kill herself and needs to speak to the "people in charge." They go looking. Zia's also after his ex (Leslie Bibb), who also killed herself after his death. Along the way they meet various strange characters including Tom Waits and Will Arnett.
Never did I warm to the premise of Wristcutters: A Love Story. These dead people, honestly, did not seem much different than the living, but the film is still an enjoyable if aimless ride. Seven years after Almost Famous, Patrick Fugit still sports that winning, dorky haircut, bangs flopping over his eyes. He is impossible not to like.
