DVD Review: The Last Word, Starring Wes Bentley
Morbid Rom-Com Features Fine Work by Winona Ryder, Ray Romano
The portfolio in this case would be a domestic theatrical release, which this film evidently couldn’t muster. That it’s a straight-to-DVD release in America is a real head-scratcher. At the least, this movie deserved to be seen in major cities before going to disc.
Wes Bentley as Professional Suicide Note Writer
This is the kind of dark film for which the words quirky, offbeat and subversive were invented. But “somber comedy” ("som rom-com"?) will do just fine. With a witty script and nice underplaying in key roles, this film lingers in the memory.
Word is the ironic, self-consciously dry story of a professional suicide note writer. (In this film’s world, such professions exist.) Wes Bentley – he of the haunted eyes – stars in the kind of sensitive/creepy-guy role he’s been perfecting since American Beauty a decade ago.
As Evan, Bentley is studious, mannered and pathologically disconnected – someone who seems to go through life with a low-grade fever and whose inner world we only sense through the mundane actions of his Spartan existence. But Evan's tidy world order is upset when Charlotte, the sister of one of his clients, corners him at her brother’s funeral.
Winona Ryder Steals Picture
As the sexually-aggressive Charlotte, the refreshingly un-waiflike Winona Ryder steals the picture with a layered and nuanced performance betraying no trace of the little-girl-lost schtick she’s been schlepping around in picture after picture since she was 13.
Their skittish courtship is hamstrung by Evan’s dirty little secret: instead of being an “old college friend of Charlotte’s brother,” he is in fact a poet whose day job is post-suicide image-building.
Ray Romano Makes Us Forget Everybody Loves Raymond
Challenging Ryder for audience attention is the surprising Ray Romano. This is not your mother’s Ray Barone; he’s excellent as Evan’s depressed client, Abel, a control freak and composer-arranger of canned music who intends suicide but eventually develops a strange and somehow life-affirming friendship with the very strange Evan.
That Abel is just as his name suggests – talented, smart, clever – gives us hope he won’t follow through on his suicidal plans; Abel seems to have too much to live for, even if he can’t see that himself.
The film essentially traces Evan and Charlotte’s slow-to-develop relationship, as Evan struggles to dodge detection as the author of Charlotte’s brother’s poetic suicide note. Among Evan’s biggest hurdles: dinner with Charlotte’s family, in which one of his cover stories is blown, and a masterfully written restaurant blackmail scene in which Evan’s facility for lying is truly tested.
Film's Plot Holes are Forgivable
There are plot holes to be sure. For example, Evan has no real reason for showing up at the funerals of his clients. Of course, without this contrivance, there’s no meeting Charlotte.
Plus, Evan’s promotional website, called “The Last Word,” seems to reveal to the world (and the authorities) his morally (if not legally) questionable service.
And wouldn’t Charlotte’s family have known from an autopsy (mandatory in suicide cases) her brother was dying of pancreatic cancer (something revealed late in the film but is news to her)?
In any event, we are grateful for an ending that is distinctively not rom-com routine, yet appropriate. (By the way, the very last scene is an absolute hoot.)
The Last Word marks an impressive debut for writer-director Geoffrey Haley, whose credits mostly involve running a steadicam on movie and TV shoots.
Larry Miller Winds Up on Edit Room Floor
With its deliberate pacing and deadpan tone, the brief (94-minute) movie is an acquired taste, but worth exploring. The DVD includes six deleted scenes, which reveal comic actor Larry Miller -- in another of his dry weirdo roles as a client of Evan -- didn't make the final cut.
There also are production stills and a trailer. The release is available in DVD ($27.98 list price), Blue-ray at $35.96 and is available starting Apr. 21, 2009.
Wes Bentley in The Last Word, image courtesy
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