Starring Adrian Rawlins, Jamie Sives. Written by Lone Scherfig,
Anders Thomas Jenson. Directed by Lone Scherfig. (STC) 109 minutes.
Bloor (506 Bloor W.) June 25-July 1.
With a title and subject as dour and forbidding as a rainy Scottish afternoon, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
is nevertheless a thoughtful and charming affair. Its director, Lone
Scherfig, is a Dane with few connections to Glasgow, where the film is
set (this is also her first English-language film). Her previous film, Italian for Beginners,
was set in suburban Denmark, and though the rainy Glaswegian streets
feel a million miles from there, Scherfig demonstrates an authentic
sense of what life is like in cold, northern towns.
The film's
title is a blunt statement, and also the main action of the piece:
Wilbur (Jamie Sives) does want to kill himself, so he can take up
residence beside his parents, who currently reside six feet under in a
local cemetery. He unsuccessfully tries various methods, in scenes that
are grimly amusing, before winding up in hospital under the eye of an
eccentric but caring psychiatric team. His brother, Harbour (Adrian
Rawlings), thinks Wilbur just needs a girlfriend, but when an
attractive loner, Alice (Shirley Henderson), comes calling at their
family bookstore, she takes to Harbour. Soon they make up an odd little
family -- Harbour, Alice, Wilbur and Alice's bookworm daughter, Mary
(Lisa McKinlay).
Wilbur, who longs for Alice himself but
recognizes his death wish means he doesn't have much to offer, starts
making tiny changes in his life. The movie also shifts by slow degrees
from a black comedy not unlike the 1972 cult classic,
Harold and Maude, to a love story, then finally on to tragedy.
Wilbur
is slow and serious, but its brain is in the right place, and
Scherfig's carefully nurtured series of small moments adds up to
something profound.