When strangers meet in "
Wristcutters: A Love Story," there's none of the usual chitchat about where they're from or what they do for a living. Instead, people cut right to the core of their bizarre circumstances with the question, "So how did you off yourself?"
Characters in this quirky but surprisingly lighthearted dark comedy are all suicide victims. A pitch-perfect absurdist tone is set in the opening scene of Zia (Patrick Fugit) slitting his wrists over a love affair gone sour after first fastidiously cleaning his bedroom and watering his plants. His pal Eugene (Shea Whigham) electrocutes himself while playing electric guitar with a rock band. Other more conventional means to the same end flash by, such as a hanging and a head in an oven.
HOWEVER,
Officials at a top US suicide prevention group are failing to see the funny side of billboard ads for a new comedy that show people killing themselves. Acclaimed indie movie
Wristcutters: A Love Story follows a group of people who have taken their own lives, as they take a trip through purgatory. The film, starring
Patrick Fugit and
Shannyn Sossamon, has won a handful of top indie film prizes in America, but the director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is not a fan of the film, or its marketing campaign. In a letter to producers, Robert Gebbia says, "You don't see people making fun of other causes of death, but you see it with suicide and mental illness." But producer
Courtney Solomon isn't planning to pull the ad campaign, stating, "The movie's message is that love is better than suicide. Our job is to get people into the theatre in a way that's accessible to them. There are many different ways to skin a cat. God forbid someone was considering committing suicide. This film may change their opinion."
