#A Love Story Takes A Trip Through Punk Purgatory

While the premise sounds pretty depressing, “Wristcutters: A Love Story” is a warm and surprisingly uplifting love story told through unconventional means. The desaturated, bizarre purgatory presented here has its odd charms, including tiny miracles that occur when people aren’t paying attention to their misery and a black hole that somehow exists beneath the passenger seat of Eugene’s car. It plays like a very dark road trip movie, with the characters repeatedly getting frustrated with one another’s motivations and petty nonsense. Eugene takes his flirting way too far, Zia’s mooning for his ex is borderline creepy, and Mikal enjoys stealing “no shoplifting” signs and breaking every man-made rule she possibly can. They’re each a bit intense in their own way, but somehow they make a charming trio. 

When Mikal performs a minor miracle and fixes the headlights on Eugene’s car by pushing a button, they see a man lying in the road and narrowly miss him. They discover that he is a commune leader named Kneller (Waits), and he fell asleep while looking for his dog. Zia finds himself unable to perform any of the minor miracles, which frustrates him to no end. Eugene finally finds a woman who appreciates his overt advances, probably because they don’t speak the same language. They stay with Kneller for a while and discover as they’re leaving that Kneller’s dog was abducted by a rival cult leader called “Messiah King” (Will Arnett). They set off to rescue the dog and discover much, much more than they bargained for at the King’s compound. 

As Mikal searches for the people in charge and Zia looks for his lost love, the two start falling for one another. It’s a bizarre idea, to fall in love after you’re already dead, so both of them try to ignore their feelings. 

It’s a fascinating look at how grief changes the way we act, and how people who have lost so much are hesitant to love (and lose) again.