Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)

Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Written by: Ms. Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jenson
Starring: Adrian Rawlins (Harbour), Jamie Sives (Wilbur), Shirley Henderson (Alice), Lisa McKinlay (Mary), Mads Mikkelsen (Horst) and Susan Vidler (Sophie).

On a tip from Joe Morgenstern the film reviewer from The Wall Street Journal, I rented Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself. It sounded like just the kind of movie this blog is about: those obscure, often foreign, films that you never hear about but are just really good. And even if you do hear about them, there isn't enough on the internet to tell you if it is good or not. So that's where I come in.

It's hard for me not to like this film, first of all because it is set in Glasgow and I love Glaswegians almost as much as I love saying that word. Second, it manages to make a whimsical film out of the relationships between one suicidal brother, his terminally ill brother and their mutual love interest, an unemployed single mother.

The eponymous Wilbur, played by Jamie Sives, does in fact try to kill himself throughout the movie. Either in front of the gas stove, slitting his wrists in a bath tub or hanging himself from the ceiling of his brother's used bookstore. Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) doesn't explain why he's suicidal (except for an allusion to his mother's death when he was five) nor does she necessarily have to.

There's something about Sives, who kind of reminds me of Robert Downey Jr., that makes him believable as one of those people that treats everyone like shite, but certain people tend to love them anyway. Despite his flippancy, he has an unintented charm that is most effective on women and children. Wilbur actually gets kicked out of a suicide support group by the other members for his smartass comments. When a nurse asks him, "What do you think would happen in a broad sociological sense if we all went around killing ourselves?" He replies, "There'd be no more group." Later, that same nurse later asks him to move in with her.

He also works in a kindergarten but seems to hate all of the kids. When a boy asks him if he can hold his hand on the bus ride home from the museum, he tells him, "F__ off, nancy boy!" But somehow the kids all love him and crowd around him whenever he is around. When he finally quits the job later in the film, his co-worker tells him, "It will be hard to find a replacement who's as lousy with kids as you are."

In another scene when a woman comes on to him and leans over for a kiss he says, "You licked my ear. I'd have bought a dog if I wanted my ear licked."

But I think the film was just as much about Wilbur's brother Harbour who is played by Adrian Rawlins. Harbour had played a larger role in taking care of their father before he died and took care to keep the the information about Wilbur's suicidal tendencies away from his father, who he says loved Wilbur very much. But there is no doubt the Harbour loves his brother very much, taking care to keep him safe from himself every step of the way but without ever seeming to get frustrated with his brother for working at cross purposes.

Despite the trouble of keeping the sinking ship of their used bookstore afloat, which he claims that his father had willed to Wilbur, Harbour has some luck of his own when he meets and marries (almost that quickly) a regular customer and single mother named Alice played by Shirley Henderson.

Henderson played the homely sister in the disappointing Intermission, which had a decent cast but just tried too hard to be clever and edgy to be believeable. Henderson isn't pretty but in this film she is very attractive. A cleaning woman at the hospital, she is sacked for arriving to work late too many times (she keeps falling asleep on the bus and the bookstore) and for bringing her 8-year-old daughter played by Lisa McKinlay with her. (This was McKinlay's first and so far only film but judging from her performance here I think she's got a brilliant career ahead of her).

Alice keeps coming to the bookstore to sell books that she finds at the hospital. She and her daughter Mary are trying to save up money, but one suspects that she is finding excuses to see the brothers.

"The one in the collar [Wilbur, who has to wear a brace after trying to hang himself] is a bit of a nut case but the other one is worth getting to know," Mary tells her mother.

The scene after Harbour finally leans in for a kiss is the wedding reception held at a Chinese restaurant. After Alice moves in with Harbour, their lives revolve around reorganizing the bookstore and keeping Wilbur from killing himself.

I know I haven't said much about the story but to tell you anything more would be to give it away. However, I will say in more ways than one, the brothers trade positions and what is most interesting about Harbour is that although you could come away that he got betrayed, you can also look at it as him getting everything that he asked for in life. Anyway, he's not the kind of guy that would ever complain about his lot in life.

Needless to say, this film is all about its characters who aren't exactly eccentric (okay, not counting the suicide attempts) and not exactly outcasts, but enough of both so that they find community with each other. They've all drawn their lots in life and have come up short but have found their fulfillment in each other.

In that sense, it's a lot like The Station Agent, which is really important in a film. In Shadowlands, a character tells C.S. Lewis, "We read to know that we are not alone." I think the value of films like Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself and The Station Agent is that by observing these unique relationships the viewer also enters that unlikely community.