Review

Suicidal, but not downbeat

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (R) (108 min.) - The title says it all about Wilbur (Jamie Sives), whose suicidal tendencies don't make him any less attractive to women. One mildly smitten female is Alice (Shirley Henderson), who happens to be married to Wilbur's brother, Harbour (Adrian Rawlins), who has been cleaning up after Wilbur since their mother died.

That brief outline of Lone Scherfig's film doesn't spoil anything. Scherfig has plenty up her sleeve beyond that. Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself isn't in the same giddy league with Harold and Maude but shares some sensibilities with that cult classic.

Why Wilbur wants to snuff it, and why we should hope he won't, becomes clear under Scherfig's patient, guiding hand. For all of his flinty behavior in group therapy sessions and family outings, Wilbur is a man of great emotional potential. Alice recognizes it, but her own problems take precedence. Harbour has known it all along and dutifully caters to his brother's depression.

This is a surprisingly uplifting film, full of colorful characters and gallows humor that seems like a defense mechanism against the movie this could have become. Like last year's Oscar-winning The Barbarian Invasions, the impending end of someone's life becomes a fresh start for others, and not in melodramatic fashion.

The performances are all on the mark, and the gray Scottish backdrop adequately dulls the inherent sunniness of the screenplay. Scherfig's film goes a bit soft near its conclusion, but that's a minor quibble. By that time, Wilbur, Alice and Harbour have become a fascinating love triangle, one born not of sex but necessity. That in itself makes Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself a film worthy of attention. B plus

Young Adam (NC-17) (98 min.) - Two Scottish bargemen fish a corpse from a river in the opening minutes of David Mackenzie's film. It's obvious that the younger boatman, Joe (Ewan McGregor) feels something like compassion for the victim. But why? As time progresses and, in some cases, flashes backward, it's clear that Joe isn't a compassionate sort. He's promiscuous, seeking nothing from his conquests other than carnal satisfaction. That compulsion is the source of Young Adam's NC-17 rating, essentially a death sentence at the box office. And, like this year's earlier NC-17 offering, The Dreamers, it's debatable that such graphic sexuality and frontal nudity is even necessary to the central theme. Joe does know more about that drowning victim than he'll admit. His guilty feelings while watching another man on trial for her murder is the essence of Mackenzie's movie. Joe's relationship with the dead woman, or any other sex partners, can haunt him without so much sexual detail.

But it's probably there for two reasons: Novelist Alexander Trocchi included those details in the book Mackenzie adapted, and the filmmaker realized that such internalized drama with long, wordless passages needed something to keep audiences interested.

Ella (Tilda Swinton), the wife of Joe's barge partner Les (Peter Mullan), can't resist his laconic charm. Neither can her recently widowed sister (Therese Bradley) or Cathie (Emily Mortimer), a woman he picked up on a beach. Each of those encounters means more trouble for Joe, yet McGregor is so reserved that we never sense his awareness or naivete about those risks. The result is a movie as gloomy as its Scottish settings, understated to the brink of boredom. I'm certain that isn't what creators of the NC-17 rating had in mind. C