Sundance movies have suicidal tendencies

By Gregg Goldstein

PARK CITY, Utah (Hollywood Reporter) - A weekend of slow Sundance sales might not be enough to drive film executives to suicide, but several films they're watching could. More than 15 entries at this year's festival have characters contemplating, attempting or actually killing themselves.

Right off the bat, Sundance presented two films centered on suicidal hitmen: Martin McDonagh's opening-night film "In Bruges," starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, and actor Michael Keaton's directing debut "The Merry Gentleman," which premiered Friday.

Geoff Haley's "The Last Word" looks at a writer (Wes Bentley) whose business is drafting people's suicide notes, including one for a despondent Ray Romano. In "I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster," an already suicidal teenage girl tries to kill herself while being held hostage. And in "The Wackness," one character attempts to re-create James Mason's famous walk into the ocean in "A Star Is Born."

And those are just the funny films.

"Comedies with suicide are just a phenomenon this year," director of programming John Cooper said. "In 'Birds of America,' one of the brothers once attempted suicide. His siblings are always saying they should check up on him to see if he committed suicide. It's all very matter-of-fact with deadpan humor."

In Barry Levinson's Hollywood tale "What Just Happened?" an agent's suicide is played for laughs. Cooper also pointed to slapstick used in "Gentleman" (a character falls backwards while standing on a ledge), "Bruges" (an assassin tries to prevent his intended target's suicide) and "Gangster" (a botched hanging).

Killing oneself might be a popular idea among this year's crop of emerging artists, but it is not altogether new. "Every year, the programmers post a list of the number of films with suicide in them, and it's always the biggest list of all the themes," festival director Geoff Gilmore said, acknowledging the gallows humor in his programming department. "Talk about a staple of independent cinema."

But why do so many of this year's death-obsessed films also contain humor? "I think a lot of filmmakers are depressed, but they're responding to it in different ways, not just by trying to solve the world's problems," Gilmore said. And as a result, suicide -- if not exactly painless, as the song goes -- is a lot easier to watch. "What's different is that in most cases the characters recover or take another path," he said.