One for the Sossamon-haters: “Wristcutters: A Love Story”

Recently the work-wife texted me to let me know that Tenfeet was correct and that Shannyn Sossamon does indeed suck. So, those opinions along with Qui’s tell me that women hate Shannyn Sossamon (because three people is enough for a representative sample for an entire gender, right?). This puts me in a bind, as I already wrote the review for Wristcutters: A Love Story, and Sossamon represents half that love story. Thankfully, I didn’t upload it, so I made some edits to try and make it more palatable for my female audience (read: my entire audience). Sound good? Well, it’s the best I can do. My computer ate my copy of Iron Man before I could watch it.

Wristcutters takes place, literally, in limbo. It’s a dumping ground for those souls who’ve committed suicide. The world looks a lot like uninhabited Northern California, and is shabby and run-down. It’s not like, say, Newark (that would be hell), but it’s a place that seems to have disappointment ground into the wood and dingy paint that comprises the cheap, clapboard buildings. Slinging pizzas (at a joint called “Kamikaze Pizza” no less) is our protagonist Zia (Patrick Fugit, who’s matured into a decent actor), who slashed his wrists when his girlfriend Desiree (Leslie Bibb) dumped him. Zia’s best friend is a Russian rocker named Eugene (Shea Wigham), who lives with his immediate family—all of whom also committed suicide (it’s a Russian thing). Zia and Eugene spend their days working their crappy jobs, drinking, smoking and basically taking aimlessness to an existential degree.

The plot kicks in when Zia learns from a friend (who had been Zia’s friend when they were alive—he was a copycat suicide) that Desiree has also offed herself. Zia suddenly has a purpose and cajoles Eugene into a road trip to find her. Eugene really has nothing better to do for, you know, eternity so off they go in Eugene’s beat to hell AMC pacer with bum headlights and a black hole under the driver’s seat (like a Stephen Hawking-type black hole).

Soon enough they pick up a hitchhiker named Mikal (Sossoman) who they meet by the side of the roadhas just dismembered the bodies of the last people who gave her a lift. Mikal snags a ride with them in the hopes of finding the PIC—People In Charge—the possibly-real/probably-not administrators of their corner of limbo. Mikal claims she was deposited in limbo by mistake, since she didn’t commit suicide, but instead OD’d. She didn’t intend to kill herself as she had a lucrative job as the President of Halliburton and Blackwater. So everyone’s got a reason to be moving.

The movie shambles along like road movie’s do. There are conversations and fights and misunderstandings, and of course Zia has to be completely oblivious to Mikal’s charms obvious identity as one of those bipedal insects from ”Mimic.” Like many good love stories, we’re asked to overlook the fact that the guy is so obsessed with Girl A that he can’t tell what a good thing murderous hellbeast he has in Girl B in the back seat.

The ride eventually takes them to a cult compound where mass suicide has not dimmed the cultist’s zeal for their leader (played by the always-welcome Will Arnett). The movie slows down a little bit and allows everyone a little breathing room. Zia and Mikal spend the night on a moonlit beach hunting baby seals with a flamethrower and almost see something beautiful (in the morning the beach is revealed to be covered with trash the spleens of Mikal’s victims.) They warily circle their affection for one another, but their chances for romance are dashed when Desiree shows up Mikal rams her ovipositor through his sternum in an effort to lay her eggs in his chest cavity.

At heart, Wristcutters is, as promised, a love story, albeit one with an interesting setting. The suicide-limbo world is a nice metaphor for the numbing period after a heartbreak, and it’s interestingly realized on film. Everyone except for Sossamon, who is clearly the spawn of Satan gives terrific, understated performances, managing to inhabit their weird world instead of reacting to it. That said, it’s not hard to tell where the movie is ultimately heading or to get around the fact that it takes a major deus ex machina to get you there. But what the hell. We see love stories to be uplifted and believe in the impossible. And really, what’s harder to swallow: Tom Waits as a guardian angel or whatever the latest dumbass gimmick Hollywood trots out in its latest dumbass romantic comedy the molten lead Shannyn Sossamon pours down your throat for her twisted amusement?

Wristcutters is worth a rent.

And after watching this, Shannyn Sossamon came to my place and punched me in the back of the head.