Movie Maven

Director: Doran Dukic
Writer: Doran Dukic, based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers," by Etgar Keret
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Leslie Bibb

Normally, films that deal with teenage depression and death are laden with well-intentioned "messages," generally directed to parents rather than to the teens themselves. The story is usually told with de-saturated color and a grimness of purpose that, well, just depresses you. Most think this is an appropriate reaction, but I have long held the theory that within drama there are sad films and then there are depressing films. The first is genuine encapsulation of human emotion. The second is merely manipulation of the viewer.

What a delicious surprise, then, that "Wristcutters," about a boy who commits suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend, is at heart a gently funny road movie. The boy, Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide by the title's method at the beginning of the film, and enters an otherworldly way station for people who have "offed" themselves. He establishes that the universe he's inhabiting isn't terrible or hellish, just kind of depressing. "It's fitting that this place is exactly like life," he says in a voice over, "only a little bit worse." Zia has a job at a pizza place, and hangs out in a dingy bar after work, trying to guess how the other patrons killed themselves. But when he learns that his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) also committed suicide a month after he did, he goes to find her at the edges of the world beyond the city where he lives.

Along for the ride is his Eastern European rocker friend Eugene (Shea Whigham) who electrocuted himself with his own guitar. They take Eugene's car, which has a black hole underneath the front seat they keep dropping things into, and listen to Eugene's music as they travel "East-ish" into a barren wasteland that has the curious look of a Dali painting set in the Nevada desert. They pick up a hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who says she was put there by mistake and is looking for the people in charge of this humid purgatory to send her home.

Perhaps the strangest thing about "Wristcutters" is that you tend to forget it's about suicide. In spite of the title, the film doesn't dwell on the violence of Zia's beginning act, but rather on his determination that his life can still have meaning, even after it's ostensibly over. It is a sad movie, but it never depresses. Eugene's entire family killed themselves, in various ways and for various reasons. But the horror of their deaths is nonexistent; they all live together in this world and love and support each other, just as they did in life. The point, of course, is that the worst thing that can happen to you is not death, but loneliness.

The three travelers end up in a community run by a man named Kneller (the inimitable Tom Waits,) a place where lost souls somehow end up, and maybe perform some miracles in the process. These scenes where the characters rest and recharge for the road ahead are the most lovingly rendered in the film, and Waits steals the movie as a weary, battle-scarred hippie assisting people with their salvation.

The film is hardly perfect. The ending especially looked a bit sloppily done, the rhythm was sped up too abruptly and the climax was improperly explained (though it did feature a cameo by Will Arnett, and who can say no to that?) The last 20 minutes were filled with action and rushed exposition; it almost looked like it came from a different film from the lovely, delicate nature of the previous hour. And without giving too much away, I felt like the denouement was a bit of cop-out in terms of resolution. But a less than perfect ending is a small price to pay for Ducik's overall vision, which is moving and sad- but not depressing.

(Photo courtesy of Autonymous Films, via The New York Times)