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"Feeling
Kinda 'Wirey'"
by Scott Mantz
"Wirey Spindell"
Eric Schaeffer, Callie Thorne
Directed by Eric Schaeffer
There's something
pretty frightening about the prospect of getting married. What do
you expect with wedding vows that contain the line "'till death
do us part"? Let's face it. Unless you have a terminal disease,
you're in for a long haul. With the pressure to make marriage work
and the divorce rate at an all time high, it's understandable that
certain people would choose to wait until well past their 30's to
take the plunge. While some people just need to experiment and sow
their wild oats, others need to confront the past before they can
face the future. "Wirey Spindell" examines these pre-marital woes
in an often amusing, but somewhat bizarre, tale about the road to
domestic bliss.
With three days
to go until he marries Tabitha (Callie Thorne), the woman of his
dreams, Wirey Spindell (Eric Schaeffer) gets the pre-wedding jitters.
Obviously, they have some serious issues that they need to work
out (among other things, they haven't had sex in 9 months). They
agree to see a therapist, where Wirey traces his current state of
affairs back to his childhood. Will he work out his problems, or
will he lose the best thing that's ever happened to him?
The film begins
with Wirey locked in his bathroom, thinking about his past and pondering
his future. Tabitha knocks on the door and asks if he wants some
tea. For the next few minutes, Wirey launches into a very funny
tirade about the importance of alone time to a man. At first, this
seemed like a film about a man who's afraid to grow up and face
the responsibility of getting married, but it's actually much darker
than that. "Wirey Spindell" is a sad, strange, and sappy love story,
which, in some ways, bears a striking resemblance to "The World
According to Garp".
Wirey's childhood
starts off with an electrifying experience after he kisses an electrical
outlet, and it goes downhill from there. The son of separated hippie
parents, Wirey lives in New York City with his burned-out mother.
She has trouble showing him affection, so he passes time listening
to old Beatles records, collecting baseball cards, and drinking
cheap wine. He moves to Vermont to attend high school, where he
has a hard time making new friends. All that changes when he demonstrates
an uncanny ability for playing basketball and getting his hands
on the best drugs in town. He goes through a string of dysfunctional
relationships, which last all through college, until he finally
meets Tabitha.
This may all
sound depressing, but writer/director Eric Schaeffer ("My Life's
in Turnaround", "If Lucy Fell") has a talent for lacing dark and
depressing moments with irony and humor. The only problem is that
it gets a little too dark, and it threatens to shut out the audience.
The film is amusing during the present day sequences, but it is
a stark contrast to the flashbacks, which at times can be a little
too hard to swallow. Compounding the uneven structure are the three
actors who portray Wirey through the years. They bear no physical
or emotional resemblance to the present day Wirey, who evokes the
mannerisms of a Gen-X version of Woody Allen.
Despite its
flaws, "Wirey Spindell" actually has a very positive and uplifting
message. We're all given different paths to follow, and we must
all overcome the obstacles that get in our way. Some are more fortunate
than others, but hopefully we can all find the determination to
make it through. Everything that has happened to us up to this point
has made us who we are today. It may have been hard at times, but
if we're good people, then it was all worth it. Why have regrets
about the past, when you can feel good about the future.
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