Wristcutters: A Love Story

Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukic, 2007) [5]

This is a harmless film, fairly boring, that's forgotten the moment its over. Wristcutters is part romantic comedy, part whimsical fantasy, and part road movie and said parts never really form into anything that coherent or interesting. After committing suicide, Zia (Patrick Fugit) ends up in a kind of suicide purgatory, a world similar to reality, only everything is supposedly worse. The only problem with this is that the film never really shows this. It's just like a washed out looking reality with decrepit buildings and lots of power lines. Zia soon finds out that his girlfriend also offed herself and the film turns into a search for her as Zia and his friend Eugene drive across the barren afterlife searching for her. They meet a variety of characters, including Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), claiming to be wrongfully sent there, and Tom Waits in an obtuse, bizarre performance that must have appealed to only Tom Waits. The film moves down parallel tracks, a romantic comedy between Zia and Mikal, and a whimsical fantasy about a dark subject. The problem is that Dukic never finds an effective way to combine the two. The film often shifts in and out of each subject until it reaches a point that it comes out as a muddle jumble that's never very interesting. Some occurrences go on, things are never really explained that much, and the ending is to be expected. Wristcutters is another good example of an interesting premise being undermined by a clunky execution. That's not to say I hated this; I didn't, it's just that it does nothing to make it stick in my mind.