Synopsis
A dark comedy set in a timeless storybook universe. Self-proclaimed artist and genius, K. Roth Binew, has one day to live. He has enlisted his best and only friend, Mills Joquin, to take him around on a bicycle powered rickshaw. In a final attempt to probe life’s deepest mysteries, Binew endures one ridiculous trial after the next. He concludes his day with a final performance, his living wake. On a makeshift stage in an open field, Binew’s friends and enemies gather to witness his madness one final time.
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Cast
- Jesse EisenbergMills
- Mike O'ConnellK. Roth Binew
- Jim GaffiganLampert Binew
- Ann DowdLibrarian
- Colombe Jacobsen-DerstineProstitute
- Eddie PepitoneReginald
- Jill LarsonAlma Binew
- Diane KaganMarla
- Caleb WentworthYoung K. Roth
- Sam GoldfarbK. Roth's Doctor
Recommendations
- 80
Time Out
Sol Tryon’s dark, irrepressibly hilarious fable offers highbrow absurdism and low-budget filmmaking at their most clever and outlandish. - 60
Boxoffice Magazine
There's nothing more irritating than a piece that strains to be kooky and eccentric, yet one reason The Living Wake ultimately gets to you is that O'Connell is not trying too hard. - 50
The New York Times
Audiences will be either captivated or irritated, depending on their tolerance for high-concept whimsy and high-energy theatrics. By the end of the wake itself, they may be wishing Binew’s illness were running ahead of schedule. - 42
The A.V. Club
The Living Wake is cursed with a permanent smirk of smug self-satisfaction: It’s so delighted with itself that it leaves audiences out of the equation. - 40
Los Angeles Times
The number of clearly talented individuals who committed themselves to the folly of The Living Wake were fearless too. - 25
New York Post
This is a terminally whimsical vanity project that would probably have been a chore to sit through even in its original intended format, a 20-minute stage monologue. - 20
Village Voice
From an opening newsreel biography to a climactic Viking funereal ceremony, the film's absurdity proves oppressive, its linguistic cartwheels so mirthless, and its meticulous Wes Anderson–indebted set design and visual compositions so self-conscious, that the ridiculousness feels petrified.
