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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.
Theatrical Release:Oct 19, 2007 Limited
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
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Reviews for Wristcutters: A Love Story
A dreary, self-consciously quirky indie flick that seems to go on forever, despite an economical running time.
It misses the opportunity to examine why a community of people - each of whom has already given up on life - would band together to form a new society of desperate misfits.
The strain is obvious in the story's last third, as the filmmaker struggles toward a resolution that fits the logic of the hero's netherworld.
It's a shapeless, flavorless Sundance blob that rolls around for 85 of the longer minutes you'll find in a theater this year.
Boring, morose and uneventful, "Wristcutters: A Love Story" is a stinky little picture that mocks the afflicted while giving them a pat on the back.
Opportunities to comment on the ethical grey areas of suicide are mostly squandered and, as the pointless digressions begin to pile up, your mind begins to drift from the action on screen.
It is a staggeringly awful road movie, not much enlivened by the presence of Tom Waits as a wizened participant.
The story's dialogue may be wry, but what should have been a jumping-off point for a lively discussion about the meaning of life is really just a philosophically shallow wasteland.
To say that this low-fi indie movie is strange would be doing a disservice to quirky movies that thrive on their strangeness, rather than just being strange for the sake of spicing things up.
The biggest letdown in Wristcutters is that it can’t compensate for its compact arrangement with the kind of absurdist aesthetics that its summary proposes.
Strands a fantastic premise and interesting characters on its increasingly annoying road trip to nowhere in particular.
Writer-director Goran Dukic, adapting an Etgar Keret novel, may be too successful in establishing suicideland as a fate worse than death. It really is an empty, dreadful place.
Almost 40 years ago Easy Rider established that road trips can make great independent films. Or at least cheap ones. But when booking a room inside the pearly gates, cheap may not be exactly what you're looking for.
It's described as a black comedy, but you can forget the comedy part.
It is neither as clever nor as funny nor as inventive as the daring title might lead one to expect.
Screenwriter/director Goran Dukic can't quite decide on a tone. The film is at times lighthearted, almost effervescent, and then it's so dark that it becomes depressingly bleak.
The future of Wristcutters as a cult favorite is less assured. Rather than benefiting from repeated viewings, the movie's charm is pretty much spent after the first half hour.
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