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WILBUR
WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF Rating:  (out of 5 stars)Director: Lone Scherfig Producer: Sisse Graum Olsen Writers: Lone Scherfig, Anders Thomas Jensen Director of Photography: Jorgen Johansson Cast: Adrian Rawlins, Jamie Sives, Shirley Henderson, Lisa McKinlay, Mads Mikkelsen Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Despite my general enthusiasm for Dogme cinema, I have never seen Lone Scherfig's Italian For Beginners, one of the more popular Dogme releases to date. Scherfig's follow-up to the film that put her on the international map is the Scottish-set Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, a somewhat oddly textured comedy/drama that contains a few too many gaps in character development to pay off in an entirely satisfying manner. Scherfig establishes a humorously quirky tone early on and then attempts to hammer home a gut-wrenching finale, however, there's not much to bridge the gap of the disparate moods.
There is certainly nothing misleading about the film's title -- Wilbur (Jamie Sives) is afflicted with an acute case of depression, which has lead him to try -- and fail - to commit suicide on a number of occasions. Constantly picking up the pieces of his unsuccessful attempts is his older brother, Harbour (Adrian Rawlins), Wilbur's polar opposite, who happily runs a used Glasgow bookstore left to him by his father. Eventually Harbour is forced to take his brother into his apartment in order to keep a watchful eye on him, but Wilbur's emotional state largely remains the same.
Harbour suggests to his brother that perhaps female companionship will bring him stability. Wilbur has never had a problem attracting members of the opposite sex, but is reluctant to forge a meaningful relationship with anyone. In an ironic twist, it is Harbour who finds love in the form of Alice (Shirley Henderson), a quiet single mother, who works as a night cleaner in a hospital and has a made a routine of selling the books she finds on the job to Harbour's shop. Before long, Harbour weds Alice, and the woman and her daughter, Mary (Lisa Mckinley), join the brothers in the apartment. A strange family unit forms, but it is one that is quickly jeopardized by a troubling secret concerning Harbour's health and the romantic feelings which not only develop between Alice and Wilbur, but are also acted upon.
Scherfig and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen really ratchet up the conflict by introducing Alice's infidelity. It makes the woman, who initially seems only to ooze kindness and benevolence, quite a difficult study. To the filmmaker's credit, Scherfig doesn't offer any apologies for Alice's actions, nor does she romanticize the extramarital affair. The problem is that I'm not sure if this was the director's intention. The film definitely gave me the impression that I was supposed to have a deep investment in Alice and Wilbur's relationship, but this union never manages to play as anything other than a strangely formed subplot.
Wilbur is the character the writers are most guilty of not adequately fleshing out. Before commencing his romance with Alice, we see him date other women, and his treatment of them is, at worst, borderline emotionally abusive and at the very least completely disrespectful. Although afflicted with a mental illness, Wilbur's character arc falls flat due to the fact that we don't see him enough in a sympathetic light (the few times we do is when he presents the figure of a much needed older sibling to Mary). When he begins to suffer the emotional fallout that results from the almost impossible relationship he's created with his brother's wife, your feelings for Wilbur mostly remain neutralized. He doesn't seem like an adequate substitute for Harbour and, generally speaking, I wasn't rooting for this relationship to succeed.
Shirley Henderson exudes an innocence
and sweetness that allows you to forgive her character's questionable
decisions. She never falls out of love with Harbour -- on the
contrary, her feelings strengthen as his physical condition deteriorates
-- yet there's a spark between she and Wilbur that's impossible
to deny. Although the circumstances are different, this character
reminds me of the terminally ill mother that Sarah Polley played
in My
Life Without Me, who also was unfaithful to a husband
she still loved.
The dramatic stakes presented make for a film that is difficult
in most of the right ways, although my suspicion is that the director
set out to make a movie that packed more of a melodramatic punch.
While it's not as gripping an experience as it perhaps wishes
it were, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is skillfully
acted across the board and tries admirably to mesh diverse tones,
which is enough to sustain the viewer's involvement throughout.
(A THINKFilm release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on
March 12, 2004. Expands to more cities at later dates.)
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