Posted on 05/18/2007 8:07:30 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
A new film begins with a young man cleaning up his apartment, putting on a good shirt, and killing himself in the bathroom.
And it’s all downhill from there.
As its title suggests, the film Wristcutters: A Love Story presents an utterly bleak view of life—and a not very inspiring view of the afterlife, either.
The story continues in a sort of dingy purgatory, where those who have committed suicide work at menial jobs, compare stories of how they “offed” themselves, and, incredibly, even contemplate killing themselves a second time. When the protagonist, Zia, finds out that his girlfriend committed suicide shortly after he did, he and two friends go on a bizarre road trip to find her.
Scheduled for release in August, the film is already facing controversy over its ad campaign, which is targeted toward 17- to 30-year-olds. Marketers plan to use images from the film showing people killing themselves in various ways, an idea so alarming that fourteen mental health organizations came together to challenge it.
And well they should.
As psychiatry professor Lawson Wulsin noted in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office recently issued guidelines called “Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media.” The guidelines note that there is significant evidence that misleading publicity about suicide “contributes to the contagion of suicidal behaviors.”
Courtney Solomon of After Dark Films, the film’s distribution company, claimed that the images of suicide will have slashes over them, in the manner of a traffic sign, and are supposed to serve as warnings against suicide, not to encourage it. “[The film’s] message is that love is better than suicide,” he said. “God forbid someone was considering committing suicide. This film may change their opinion.”
This is appalling. It’s like calling evil good. What passes for hope in this movie is nothing but insubstantial, fleeting at best. In this movie, human relations seem to be the only things that matter—and even these can’t be relied on. And there’s no hope or connection to the transcendent. Any figures meant to represent divinity or transcendence turn out to be phonies or arbitrary-minded bureaucrats, and most things they do end in disaster.
A note of hope at the end is supposed to represent the triumph of human love but really comes off as not much more than a fluke, and doesn’t do a lot to dispel the darkness that came before it.
To top things off, a lot of the suicides that are vividly depicted in the movie are what you might call “revenge suicides,” the kind where someone kills himself just to make everybody else sorry. (One girl’s suicide note even reads, “Are you sorry now?”) I probably don’t have to tell you how much that kind of attitude can appeal to 17- to 30-year-olds, especially those dealing with depression or other difficult circumstances.
The film company finally agreed to delay the ad campaign for a while to consider recommendations from mental health organizations. But I can’t think of much they could do to make the nihilism of this film any more palatable.
However they try to sanitize the public image, you need to warn young people against even watching ads for this film. Even a cursory glance can be devastating. The mainstreaming—even glamorizing—of suicide is the ultimate proof that many in our culture have embraced, and now even romanticized, the culture of death. Lord, help us.
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The Hours was another lib movie that started out depressing and got even more depressing until the end when it supposedly had a point. Point being -— go head! Kill yourself, it’s your right! You don’t owe anything to anyone but yourself!’
This reminds me of the afterlife waiting room scene in “Beetlejuice”, in which all the suicides were civil servants. That movie was at least funny, but very strange (like most of Tim Burton’s films).
Back in the 80’s they made a movie called “Less than Zero” I think. In it, the ‘hero’ kills himself. And magically, it caused all the other high school kids to come together and start getting along and life became utopia....
This is the crap Meryl Streep should be shrieking “What are we doing to our children!!!” about. -Glorifying suicide.
Personally I would not waste a minute to watch a movie like this Wristcutters.
Well here is another “must miss” film.
Yeah, Beetlejuice was really good, and they did a good job with the civil servant bit.
And let me say I’ll be first in line to miss it.
Gotta read/pingout later.
As an aside, I suspect that many people are born with a “suicide switch”, and a strong focal point of their life is finding a way to die.
Not just with suicide, but with “suicide by other means”, that is, actively seeking out accidents and violence with the subtle objective of self destruction.
Everything from the boy whose last words are “Hey guys! Watch me do this!”, reckless driving, drinking contests, drug abuse, scarification, and even a lot of what we don’t normally think of as negative behavior, such as military and police service.
The FBI regularly interviews captured serial killers, and have discovered an odd phenomenon, that even some of the killers themselves noticed, but could not explain. It was best described by a killer:
“I would have been driving all day and just gotten in to a city I had never been in before. I was tired and hungry and just wanted dinner and a motel room. Then someone I had never met before would come running across four lanes of traffic and get in my face. They would want to buy me a cup of coffee or a drink, or hang out with me. They wouldn’t leave me alone. It was a relief to kill them, just so I could get some sleep.”
On top of everything else, there are some people who crave to be martyrs. They want to die doing something high risk that saves someone else, or accomplishes some task. I separate them from those that just want to die, because their death wish is more complex.
Then there are the “anti-martyrs”, who want to kill people at the same time they kill themselves.
These might be firemen, people who “sacrifice” themselves even if there is no need to, all the way to the extreme of suicide bombers. The soldier who jumps on a grenade to save his buddies, even though it won’t explode for eight seconds, is an excellent example.
On top of everything else are the “faux suicides”, who don’t really want to kill themselves, but want others to think they are suicidal, as an attention getting device.
The bottom line is yes, a bunch of people will kill themselves after seeing this movie. But this movie won’t inspire them to kill themselves—it will just convince them that the time to kill themselves is now.
Less Than Zero is about 2 stupid rich college aged kids doing coke and, in the end, one dies of an overdose, bringing no-one together. This is played out in the confines of a love triangle. The movie is not meant to be, nor is it, uplifting in any way. In fact, the book it is based on is written by someone who lived the incredibly vapid, drug addled, existence depicted in the film.
I think you have the wrong film.
I saw “28 Weeks Later” last week. THAT wasn’t a happy happy joy joy movie either!
How about this with “Graveyard of the Fireflies” as a double header?
Is it the Calvinists that think we are improving life on earth bit by bit . . . ?
My life is too short to waste it with dreary, depressing, unremittingly negative “entertainment”. Give me car chases and sword fights.
Neither was "28 Days Later" but it was terrific. How was "Weeks" (besides being a downer)?
Exactly as God wills, no more, no less. How could it not?
"But the word of God grew and multiplied." -- Acts 12:24
I don't find anywhere in Scripture where that trend has been permanently reversed.
Movies like this trash are part of life, the wheat and the tares.
"For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." -- 1 Corinthians 11:19
I’m still a bit confused as to when you folks believe
the time worse than has ever been or ever will be
has occurred/will occur.
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