Wristcutters opens with what proves to be its best scene, one that could stand alone as a brilliant short subject.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2007)
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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
Strands a fantastic premise and interesting characters on its increasingly annoying road trip to nowhere in particular.
Director Goran Dukic keeps things simple and funny. The same tone pervades throughout.
Dark subject matter, but Goran Dukic's film is whimsical and determinedly optimistic about life.
It is neither as clever nor as funny nor as inventive as the daring title might lead one to expect.
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.
The inscrutability of the performances make Bill Murray look like Anthony Quinn.
Veering from witty to occasionally trite, Wristcutters: A Love Story has plenty of originality on its side, but never manages to be more than the sum of its self-consciously quirky parts.
Croatian filmmaker Goran Dukic's debut feature turns out to be a sweetly grim lark: a road film through Limbo.
Goran Dukic’s film starts off seeming hip and funky and dark, but almost immediately runs out of steam. It feels like a short carelessly padded to feature length.
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.
It's goofy. I can definitely say that. But it's goofy on purpose and that's the kind of goofy we like.
This affectionate slow-blooming romance mines an understated vein of comic melancholy that the actors' wistful performances perfectly capture.
The purgatorial premise is pleasingly eccentric but, in the end, Wristcutters falls victim to its washed-out mood, and limps bloodlessly to a close.
It's uneven story pulls it back to earth, but many of its ideas are transcendent.
While it's quirky and intriguing, this is the kind of wilfully nutty black comedy that treads the extremely thin line between inventiveness and pretentiousness.
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.
Seven years after Almost Famous, Patrick Fugit still sports that winning, dorky haircut, bangs flopping over his eyes. He is impossible not to like.
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