A Scottish-based black comedy – with a title like that, it would have to be fairly black – directed by Denmark’s Lone Scherfrig, the mordantly funny if unremarkable Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself stars up-and-coming Britpacker Jamie Sives (a veteran of Vinnie Jones’ unwatchable Mean Machine) as the suicidal sad sack of the title.
Wilbur, probably traumatised beyond redemption by his first name, is a maladjusted waste of space – even his suicide attempts are hopeless failures – who helps his elder brother Harbour (Adrian Rawlings) run a Glaswegian bookshop, which they inherited from their father who has recently passed away to meet his maker. Harbour’s impossibly cheerful and optimistic disposition tend to throw his sibling’s terminal misery into even sharper focus, and to complicate the picture further, they then fall for the same woman (Shirley Henderson as a single mother).
Pancreatic cancer, wrist-slittings and other such delights form what passes for the comic relief here, and though the script’s blend of world-weariness and wry humour is not without merit, despite the spirited performances of Henderon, Sives and Rawlins, Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself would appear to be doomed to complete box-office failure.
An unwarranted fate, perhaps, but what exactly did they expect?
109mins. Cert 18. Opens December 5