...said reason being that it was, to the best of my knowledge, the last film a buddy of mine saw before he dropped dead thanks to an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of fifty. Sure, that's a bit morbid, but so is "Wristcutters," surprise, surprise. Based on a short story by Israeli tale spinner Etgar Keret, Croatian auteur Goran Dukic's first feature film proves to be a low-key dark comedy that's much more watchable than I expected. You have to understand; my late friend was the prototypical example of what you would call a wet blanket, a party pooper, a "Pigpen". One would have thought, from his attitudes toward and behavior in life, that "Wristcutters" might have served as a "how-to" guide for him to off himself, but nothing could be further from the truth. Despite his cynicism and inarticulate rage against the world, his heart still beat with a need to love and be loved, and that is what I suspect drew him to a film like "Wristcutters." That, and low-fi indie fare was his favorite film entertainment.
After being highly amused by the opening sequence of Patrick "Almost Famous" Fugit's antihero cleaning up his room, my viewing companion bailed at the revelation of his messy suicide. Understandable, but unfortunately she ended up missing out on a fair amount of gentle-though-dark humor and an ultimately life-affirming conclusion. Though hardly a classic, and not likely to attain much in the way of cult-film notoriety, "Wristcutters" has its charm, and is well worth a rental or lucky find at the public library. Its technical aspects are quite good, the acting is decent, the score and songs are appropriate (the presence of Tom Waits in a film is most always a good sign), and I was left looking forward to Mr. Dukic's next venture. Your mileage may, of course, vary, but my bet is that if you give this one a chance, you'll be as pleasantly surprised as I was at how much you like it.
After being highly amused by the opening sequence of Patrick "Almost Famous" Fugit's antihero cleaning up his room, my viewing companion bailed at the revelation of his messy suicide. Understandable, but unfortunately she ended up missing out on a fair amount of gentle-though-dark humor and an ultimately life-affirming conclusion. Though hardly a classic, and not likely to attain much in the way of cult-film notoriety, "Wristcutters" has its charm, and is well worth a rental or lucky find at the public library. Its technical aspects are quite good, the acting is decent, the score and songs are appropriate (the presence of Tom Waits in a film is most always a good sign), and I was left looking forward to Mr. Dukic's next venture. Your mileage may, of course, vary, but my bet is that if you give this one a chance, you'll be as pleasantly surprised as I was at how much you like it.