Zia (Patrick Fugit) is a lonely young man who, saddened by his recent breakup with his blonde girlfriend Desiree (Leslie Bibb), decides in a fit of depression to cut his wrists in the bathroom. As the tile becomes covered with blood, he falls unconscious to the floor, his last moment a flash of a dust bunny in a corner he had missed while cleaning.
Wristcutters: A Love Story is the directorial debut of Croatian Goran Dukic, who developed the script at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2004, based on a short story by Israeli writer/actor Etgar Keret titled "Kneller’s Happy Campers". Dukic studied cinema in Zagreb and later at the American Film Institute, specializing in shorts. One of them, Mirta uci statistiku (1991), was critically well received, heralded as one of the best Croatian films. Dealing with the controversial subject of suicide, Wristcutters, after being a nominee at Sundance 2006 for the Grand Jury Award, won the best feature award in the Gen Art Film Festival and nominations for best first feature and best script in the Independent Spirit Awards (2007).
Going back to the plot: "I think she cried at my funeral. I don't mean to brag," Zia tell us after dying and being buried, supposing Desiree would have attended his burial throwing flowers on his coffin and crying over his loss. The next morning Zia presents to us the new reality he has to face now in the afterlife, where he works as an employee in the grime Pizzeria Kamizake in the suburbs; every morning he contemplates his unhappy face in a distorting mirror while he's dressing in a dull uniform.
In this somber afterworld, where things are really the same as they were in the living world, only slightly worse, the conversations among the deceased citizens are about the method they chose to "off" themselves. The jukeboxes play Joy Division songs in the bars, as one night a girl named Tania (Azura Skye) confesses to Zia she opted for sticking her head in an oven and writing a suicide note. When Zia sits down with her friend Rachel (Sarah Roemer), a funny Russian ex-rocker, a drunk approaches Zia and he tells him how he electrocuted himself at a concert by pouring beer over his guitar, angered by an ungrateful audience.
Article comments
1 - love_4books
Wristcutters is a great example of adaptation of story to film. What a film and what a story!!
I have loved Edgar Keret from the moment he started writing stories and can recommend his collection of short stories "The Busdriver Who Wanted to Be God" (Toby Press $12.95)to anyone. The last story in this volume "Kneller's Happy Campers" is the story that Wristcutters was based upon. Enjoy!