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Wristcutters: A Love Story

Better than fairy-tale straightjackets

By CHRIS BRAIOTTA | January 28, 2010

3.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Wristcutters: A Love Story.

Goran Dukic’s film starts with a man named Zia (Patrick Fugit). He awakes in a messy bedroom, a tangle of clothes and refuse signaling either bachelorhood or depression. He looks around, tidies in silence, and then kills himself. Depression it is. He winds up in a Hell reserved for suicides, less fire and loincloths and more like a crummy day in Bakersfield. Learning that the girl he killed himself over has just followed suit, he undertakes a road trip to find her. Wristcutters betrays a Euro pedigree as it kneads the strange into the matter-of-fact. Although the setting allows free rein for mystical high jinks, Dukic never overindulges. What could have been Touched by an Angel: The Movie is transformed by the director’s poker face into something odd and expressive, free of fairy-tale straitjackets. 88 minutes | Kendall Square

Topics: Reviews , Patrick Fugit

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