Despite being occasionally hilarious, director Goran Dukic should have toned down the wackiness.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:55
Rotten:30
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Wristcutters: A Love Story sounds like a normal enough indie flick. Boy meets girl. Boy gets separated from girl. Boy goes on a road trip with friends to find girl and gains a new perspective on life. Except everybody's dead.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
US Box Office: $231,512
Synopsis: If a film begins with a suicide, chances are, it won't be the feel-good movie of the year. But WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY is surprisingly sweet and funny even as it proudly features a dark streak... If a film begins with a suicide, chances are, it won't be the feel-good movie of the year. But WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY is surprisingly sweet and funny even as it proudly features a dark streak that lives up to its title. After a rough breakup, Zia (Patrick Fugit) decides to off himself by slashing open his wrists. Instead of waking up in heaven or hell, Zia arrives in a bland world that looks a lot like the one he just left, though with far less color, life, and--obviously--happiness. In this afterlife reserved for suicides, no one can smile, and the sky is a starless void. But when Zia hears that his ex-girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) has killed herself and lives in his world, he sets out on a road trip to find her. Joined by Russian musician Eugene (Shea Whigham) and pretty hitchhiker Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), Zia crosses the desolate landscape and encounters a variety of strange characters. With the help of Mikal, Zia realizes that maybe his ex-girlfriend isn't really what he's looking for. Most films don't stray from prescribed genres or simple plots, but this dark comedy from director Goran Dukic is audacious in its originality. Dukic adapted Etgar Keret's short story "Kneller's Happy Campers" into a film that succeeds on every level. His cast, particularly Fugit and a brilliant Tom Waits in a supporting role, is worthy of the excellent material and blackly comic dialogue. Though it could be described as a romantic comedy, this film is far closer to ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND than SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. WRISTCUTTERS's soundtrack is also something to sing about with several infectious tracks from Gogol Bordello and a pitch-perfect score from Bobby Johnston. [More]
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shea Whigham, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shea Whigham, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Will Arnett, Leslie Bibb, John Hawkes, Abraham Benrubi, Mark Junior Boone, Jake Busey, Mikal P. Lazarev, Chase Ellison
Director: Goran Dukic
Director: Goran Dukic
Screenwriter: Goran Dukic
Producer: Adam Sherman, Tatiana Kelly, Mikal P. Lazarev, Chris Coen
Composer: Bobby Johnston
Studio: Lions Gate and AfterDark Films
Reviews for Wristcutters: A Love Story
Wristcutters: A Love Story has an offbeat, absurdist charm that turns a potentially creepy conceit into an odd, touching adventure.
The vision of life after death varies between the religious and the non-religious, the optimists and the pessimists and the believers and non-believers. There are few after-life stories, though, as unique and humorous as this.
Sossamon and Fugit are so perfectly cast you can't help but sigh every time they glance at each other and their final scene is guaranteed to send you home with a smile a mile wide.
Wristcutters is simultaneously dark and sweet, always a difficult combination to pull off.
Enjoyably oddball without falling into molar-decaying twee ... favorably recalls the all-too-brief post-Repo Man era, when the possibilities of indie film seemed head-bustingly limitless.
it is, like the limbo it portrays, a peculiar hybrid of recognisable, second-hand elements that somehow add up to something entirely sui generis - an idiosyncratic piece of magical realism whose characters are literally on the road to nowhere.
Wristcutters opens with what proves to be its best scene, one that could stand alone as a brilliant short subject.
Though it goes a bit wonky toward the end and seems to travel a very long way to drive home a rather simple point, Wristcutters: A Love Story remains a wonderfully evocative experience.
Wristcutters is a small film of ambitions nicely scaled to the performances and story. Who knew that affectless characters could be so oddly affecting?
The purgatorial premise is pleasingly eccentric but, in the end, Wristcutters falls victim to its washed-out mood, and limps bloodlessly to a close.
A comedy that starts with suicide and then goes for the love story isn't for everyone, but there is an audience for this little independent film and you know who you are.
kept trying to shake the film's subtle charm and unvarnished romantic strokes, but I was steadily, gently pulled in over and over and over again.
Truly independent in mode and spirit, this offebat comedy deserves credit for its original vision of an after-life that's not all that different from this life--only slightly weirder and more darkly humorous.
It's goofy. I can definitely say that. But it's goofy on purpose and that's the kind of goofy we like.
This movie has a whole lotta goofy and that's gonna be quite a bit for some audiences, but other people will find a delightfully strange road trip.
This is one of the more creative, unusually entertaining things I've seen in a while.
There are problems here, but they're of the good-natured variety -- the flaws of a smart film that aims high.
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