Review
WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF
Directed by Lone Scherfig
Sundance Channel Home Video, 2002
Few subjects are as inherently funny as depression. Of all depressives, the suicidal are by far the most entertaining and, when it comes to suicidal depression, there can be no contest – the Scandinavians do it best.
Why, then, is Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself such a mixed joy, particularly given that writer-director Lone Scherfig’s previous outing, Italian for Beginners, was such a gracefully balanced and touching comedy?
In part, it’s because she has moved the action from her native Denmark to Scotland. Not that there’s anything wrong with Scotsmen slitting their wrists, nor is it that Shakespearean precedent (not to mention Shallow Grave) suggests this setting is better suited to action-packed homicidal greed than to existential dithering. But clearly Scherfig doesn’t quite get the Scots and none of the characters here are caught with the subtlety of the Danes in her last film.
However, most of the problem is that Scherfig has chosen to weave the slapstick with the maudlin, a tricky business for even the most experienced storyteller. So on one hand, we’ve got the eponymous Wilbur, a young man bent on self-erasure in various degrees of slapstick, and this strand works pretty smoothly throughout. But, on the other, we have his long-suffering and protecting elder brother (yes, they’re orphans) who, to one’s surprise, soon develops serious problems of his own. Rushed by Wilbur’s comic interruptions (which would probably have made a very satisfying short on their own), this feature never gets a firm enough grip on our heartstrings to wring them as thoroughly as the director would like, which is perhaps just as well, as she’s aiming for an all-out tearjerker by the final curtain (joke).
Still, if you’re looking for an old-fashioned weeper with some comic relief, go for it. Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself isn’t high art, but it’s better done than most mainstream American melodramas. |
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