Ray Pride

"Wristcutters: A Love Story," Goran Dukic’s loping fairytale comedy of a non-Utopian afterlife, is a rare animal: left out in the desert to die, a year and a half after a strong reception at Sundance 2006, but no real commercial interest, it’s come back to life and found its way back to civilization. A sun-parched road trip through California’s Inland empire, "Wristcutters" finds Zia (Patrick Fugit, at 23 and no longer the sweet-faced, callow lad of "Almost Famous") committing suicide over the love of his life and waking to find himself in a world "just a little worse" than the downbeat existence he’d known already, down to finding that his inamorata is also in the afterlife. A road trip ensues in this adaptation of Israeli fiction writer Etgar Keret’s 1998 short story "Kneller’s Happy Campers," which some have compared to a "Wizard Of Oz"-like journey to personal discovery, including Eugene (Shea Whigham), a Russian suicide and ex-rocker; hitchhiker Shannyn Sossamon and, as any movie situated in remote desert haunts pines for, Tom Waits. Dukic’s most notable gift may be for deadpan amid absurdism: whimsy hardly ever arrives in the story’s complications. The song score, notably, is composed of tunes from musicians who were themselves suicides or, at the very least, have shuffled past Buffalo. As Dukic cheerily told me earlier this year, "I think that is the main daydream in the movie, that by killing yourself, you’re going to escape your problems, right? Wherever you go with your problems, purgatory or hell or heaven, you’ll have to work on them wherever you go." 91m.

" Wristcutters: A Love Story" opens Friday at Pipers Alley.

(2007-10-30)

Also by Ray Pride

Shades of Graze
When the Whole Foods on Ashland near Belmont opened a few years ago, a friend took to calling it "Whole Cruise," and found himself meeting women of a certain age when he lingered near brie, cambozola and mimolette. Similar sensations emanate from the Dominick's on Chicago near Damen. The foot traffic along the street has increased exponentially since it opened, all manner of class, color and race represented. The surrounding populace has upscaled, and this clean-gleam replacement for the dinky Edmar's, once an A&P, functions as a feast of love, a horny cornucopia, as well
(2007-10-23)

Missing the Train
"The Darjeeling Limited" left the station without its planned pre-release promo, with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman taking a trip to Chicago and having some journos ride into the Midwest for a bit. After it's opened, there's a press day a hotel along Michigan Avenue, the elderly Drake
(2007-10-23)

Kaye-dence
Tony Kaye spent seventeen or so years shooting and editing "Lake of Fire," a resolute attempt to listen to perspectives on abortion in this country. During the extended production, many things happened, including several national elections and the killing of doctors who performed the procedure
(2007-10-23)

Tip of the Week
As part of the Humanities Festival, Facets has programmed over a dozen movies under the festival's "A Climate of Concern" rubric, mostly brilliant, about the terrors that underlie our modern world and the times to come, the terrors that lie outside of propaganda and fear
(2007-10-23)

Hannah and Her Brethren
(2007-10-16)

Tip of the Week
(2007-10-16)

Tip of the Week
(2007-10-09)

Do You Feel Lucky?
(2007-10-09)

Cheeseball
(2007-10-08)

There’s Something About Queefing
(2007-10-05)

Commissioned
(2007-10-02)

The 43rd International Film Festival
(2007-10-02)

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