Rating: 2.5/5

Writers: Mike O’Connell and Peter Kline
Director: Sol Tryon
Cast: Mike O’Connell, Jesse Eisenberg, Jim Gaffigan, Ann Dowd
Studio: Mangusta Productions

What would you do if you found out you would die soon? Would you live your life like an Oscar bait film, with soaring strings playing over your final days, declarations of love to those near and dear to you, and probably one last dip into an icy ocean, as you scream to gods and heaven above for taking from you this mortal coil? Or would you loll around in a bicycle rickshaw piloted by your biographer and man servant, continue your assault on the lesser brains around you, and perform a one man show at your own wake?

If you’re K. Roth Binew, there’s only one way to go. You can probably guess it’s the latter.

THE LIVING WAKE attempts to chronicle the fun side of this particular premise – K. Roth Binew (co-writer Mike O’Connell), who can best be described as a sort of man-about-town idiot savant, discovers he is dying. Binew is dying from an unspecified disease, but on a specified day. Instead of resting on his laurels, Binew continues his moronic gallivanting, but with the added pleasure that he gets to tell everyone he comes into contact just what the day has in store for him. And, make no mistake, Binew is the sort of person who will take pleasure in this. It’s his titular living wake. If he’s going out of this world, he wants to be a part of the festivities, even if that means picking out his own coffin. Binew has a lot of things to do on his last day on Earth, and goddammit, he’s going to do them, even if it means animals will die and he’ll have to make out with the elderly.

The film kicks off with a bit of newsreel touting the life and times of K. Roth Binew. Being a self-proclaimed genius and artist and unrecognized great mind is tough stuff, but Binew acts as if this greatness is apparent to everyone, even when we all know it isn’t. This translates into the overarching tone and direction of the film – when you’re as delusional as Binew, your life might verge on the side of whimsy. But it’s a bit too whimsical. Within the first sequence of events, THE LIVING WAKE feels as if NAPOLEON DYNAMITE was directed by someone who had THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS tattooed to their eyelids. It’s not necessarily a bad combination, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

There is a level of too-cool-for-school, tongue-lodged-so-firmly-in-cheek that makes the film feel both inflated and fake at times. It’s like a film student’s graduate thesis, infused with inside jokes few people will get, hilarious to those in the know, inscrutable to the rest of us. And while this is not something I’d generally recommend, I suspect that THE LIVING WAKE would be better if the viewer was under the influence.

But, beyond these issues, there’s a certain exuberance to the film, it’s got an energy to it that’s admirable. Jesse Eisenberg proves, once again, he’s game for anything and can infuse likeability into any character he plays. Mills is a rickshaw-driving houseboy who was discovered by Binew in a broom closet, and Eisenberg makes even him fun to watch. O’Connell plays Binew with such a fervent spirit that it’s hard not to acknowledge his full-tilt dedication to his own wacky creation. If that’s saying more about the talent of the cast than the merits of the film, well, so be it.

THE LIVING WAKE does benefit from a number of questions that round out its aims – will Binew’s self-proclaimed greatness ever be, even on a basic level, recognized by anyone beyond himself and his sidekick Mills? Will he ever remember the “brief but powerful monologue” from his father on the meaning of life? Wait – is Binew even really going to die today? And, as Binew asks midway through the film, “my whole life’s been awkward, why should it stop now?” Indeed.

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