Fresh
In all, it's a peculiar piece of absurdist entertainment that occupies a singular niche in American indie cinema.
Ted Fry, Seattle Times
Overview
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.
Director and cast
- Sol Tryon Director
- Jesse Eisenberg as Mills
- Mike O'Connell as K. Roth Binew
- Jim Gaffigan as Lampert Binew
- Ann Dowd as Librarian
- Colombe Jacobsen-Derstine as Prostitute
- Eddie Pepitone as Reginald
- Jill Larson as Alma Binew
- Diane Kagan as Marla
- Caleb Wentworth as Young K. Roth
- Sam Goldfarb as K. Roth's Doctor
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
47%
Tomatometer
Fresh
In the end, however, pic defies all categorization, joining a small pantheon of pics including "Withnail & I" and Peter Greenaway's "Drowning byNumbers" that whistle past the graveyard with aplomb.
Robert Koehler, Variety
Fresh
Sol Tryon's The Living Wake seems but a protracted act of stultifying self-indulgence -- but then maybe that's the point.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Rotten
Strains to accommodate its daft premise and pontificating lead.
Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Rotten
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.
Lou Lumenick, New York Post
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