SUNDANCE 06: WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY
Screened 1/24/06 at Racquet Club Theatre, Park City, UT
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Energized somewhat by Gogol Bordello songs and game actors, Goran Dukic’s debut feature still flags badly in the second half, once the novelty of his conception of an afterlife for suicides where everyone works dead-end jobs and all the music you hear is from singers who killed themselves (and your beater may have a black hole in the floorboards) wears off. Though Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon make a quirky enough couple, the performances are generally muted and even Tom Waits, in a sizable role, seems to have had personality-reduction surgery in deference to the lethargic, quasi-magic-realist mood. There’s still a welcome sardonic wit in evidence, but the unabashedly happy ending — an apparent alteration from the source novella — feels unearned. A near miss.