You Might As Well Live

You Might As Well Live (Director: Simon Ennis): When I first saw the “red band” trailer (embedded below), I have to admit I laughed out loud a few times, and so I was looking for­ward to seeing what prom­ised to be a more foul-mouthed (and dis­tinctly Canadian) ver­sion of Napoleon Dynamite. Sadly, the feature-length ver­sion was a little anemic on the laughs.

Josh Peace com­pletely inhabits the role of Robert Mutt, a depressed loser who fails at everything he tries, even sui­cide. But after two years in the local mental asylum, he’s made friends and become suc­cessful at stuff like air hockey and hotdog-eating con­tests, so he’s released as “cured.” But the com­munity still hates him, and his neigh­bour is even trying to pin a child porn charge on him. All Robert wants to do is “be a real some­body,” and inspired by myth­ical base­ball hero Clinton Manitoba (an unre­cog­niz­able Michael Madsen), he sets out to acquire the three things he needs: a girl, a bit of cash, and a cham­pi­on­ship ring. The rest of the plot involves all sorts of con­trived crazi­ness, including a roller-skating tranny, a fetish-loving TV weatherman, chem­ical cas­tra­tion, a bar mitzvah, and not one but two cata­tonic char­ac­ters. Like Napoleon Dynamite, the quirk­i­ness is amped up just a little too much for my liking, though Robert main­tains his sunny and inno­cent dis­pos­i­tion, which helps a bit.

The best part of the film for me was hearing so many put­downs that I haven’t heard since grade school: douchebag, pervo, dildo, jag-off. There is some­thing so juvenile in those that it brought a huge smile to my face everytime someone insulted Robert that way. It was also great to see Hamilton, Ontario being used as a loc­a­tion. That city’s gritty repu­ta­tion made it a great place for Robert to pursue his modest dreams among some pretty far-out char­ac­ters. The film is actu­ally more remin­is­cent of the Trailer Park Boys, but without the benefit of a tele­vi­sion season to “develop” the char­ac­ters and situ­ations more fully.

But even at a brisk 82 minutes, the film felt long to me. The rags to riches storyline is tired, which might have been for­giv­able if there were a few more laughs. Unfortunately quirky char­ac­ters in crazy situ­ations doesn’t always mean comedy gold. Someone still needs to write some jokes.

You Might As Well Live opens on Friday August 28th here in Toronto at the AMC Yonge-Dundas and at Canada Square. There is also a premiere screening at 7pm that night at the Bloor Cinema.

Official site of the film

(6/10)

Tagged as: canada