The Living Wake

2007 dark comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: K. Roth Binew, escorted by his only friend Mills Joquin, prepares for his titular wake by traveling about via rickshaw to invite his friends, family, and enemies.

Bonus point for the rickshaw. This doesn't seem to be a very popular movie, probably from the lot of people who hate the entire Eisenberg family who refuse to see the movie but still write bad things about it, but I thought it was very amusing and enjoyed its almost cartoonish philosophical themes and its go-nowhere plot. Speaking of Eisenberg, he's about right here except for an accent that kind of goes in and out, but he's mostly good for being out of the way of the real star of the show, Mike O'Connell as K. Roth Binew. Binew's a character you'll either love to hate, hate to love, or just plain hate. He's boastful with nothing at all to boast about, rudely brazen, ornery as five-year-old, and as animated as a character from a Monty Python sketch. He's a great half-realized character, but you'll hate him and most people, I reckon, will find him more annoying than humorous. I say half-realized, by the way, not as a criticism--it's appropriately for this character. His sole purpose on this final day of his is to create a complete life, leave a weird little legacy, build himself up into this mythic artistic genius, but from the episodes we get here, it's easy to see that his is a wasted life. There's just something nonsensically poignant about the whole thing. This isn't a movie that will likely ever have much of an audience, not even a cult one, and that makes me sad since it does have a rickshaw in it. Comedian Jim Gaffigan makes an appearance and doesn't talk about hot pockets even once. If this movie didn't have an Eisenberg in it and you'd told me it was a comedy from the 70's, I might have believed you. And I don't mean that as a bad thing.