Wouldn’t you love it if you had the time to go to the movies? The time and the money, that is. Sure, the Student Activities office sells tickets for $7.50. That’s a step in the right direction from the $9.25 at the local theater, but $7.50 could get a six pack of beer and a movie rental. Fortunately, living in the future as we do, we have alternatives to dropping cash at the theater. If you have a computer, you have access to Hulu.com, and one of its movies, “Wristcutters: A Love Story.”
“Wristcutters” is the story of a boy and girl – a boy and a girl who kill themselves and end up in another world. The “Wristcutters” world is like the one we live in, just a little worse. Any person who commits suicide and ends up there, working in dirtier places, drinking in sleazier bars, unable to smile, and showing off the wounds inflicted on themselves before they died. Zia, our boy, opens the movie by cleaning his apartment and then painfully slitting his wrists. He sustains himself in the post-suicide world by daydreaming about Desiree, the girl he left behind. When he finds out that Desiree killed herself a few weeks after he did, he and his Russian friend Eugene (suicide method: electrocution by electric guitar and beer) set off to find her. Along the way, they pick up hitchhiker Mikal (suicide method: overdose) who is looking for The People in Charge, because she’s got a serious case of mistaken suicide to plead.
The team of three drives across the Wristcutter world in a car that has a black hole in the floorboards, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes like they’re going to live forever. They have a tape of Eugene’s band on constant repeat, and by the end of the movie you’ll be singing ‘through the roof, underground’ in a thick accent whether you like it or not. In the surreal society of the “Wristcutters,” people can float, objects can change color, and Tom Waits may or may not be laying in the middle of any given street, ostensibly looking for his dog.
The fact that the movie is a love story is declared in its name, but it has more to offer than that. The pace is relaxing, making you feel like you have all the time in the world. The social commentary is smart and subtle, full of minor miracles. And, by the conclusion, it will make you realize that an ending can actually be a new beginning.
