Review: The Suicide Shop

Animation Still from The Suicide Shop (Le Magasin des suicides), 2012

I was lucky enough to attend the premier of "The Suicide Shop" (Le Magasin des suicides) at the TIFF yesterday. My girlfriend had friends who offered to get us some free tickets to a show of our choice. Consulting Movie Man Extraordinaire Brad Fox, we narrowed the way too many movies we could see at TIFF down to a handful, based on a few criteria, the most important of which was the likelihood that we wouldn't be able see the movie in theatres in the future. The Suicide Shop, a french animated dark comedy/musical, won. 

We were both surprised that we were handed glasses as we went into the theatre; neither of us were under the impression that this was going to be a 3-D film. Regardless, we ended up with pretty good seats (thanks, waiting in line an hour before the show!) and while I was bothered by how dirty the 3-D glasses were, I tried not to let my distaste for 3-D sour my opinion of the movie. The director, Patrice Leconte, was on hand for the movie, and the crowd was pretty excited.

To be as spoiler-free as possible, The Suicide Shop is a movie about a family (the Tuvaches) that runs a shop in a nondescript urban city (likely a rough stand-in  for Paris). Their trade is in giving you the right tool you need to commit suicide. As the movie explains, the world sucks, and what with all the economic and environmental collapse (and general misery), more people than ever are thinking about ending their lives. The Tuvache family is kind of like an entrepreneurial take on the Adams Family, making their products attractive to their clientelle, despite the grim nature of what they're selling (the patriarch of the family Monsieur Tuvache, proudly declares that their razor blades are sharpened in store, and they have rusty ones if you want to increase your odds of getting tetanus).

As per any good movie, the birth of their third child, a perpetually happy twerp named Alan, throws things into disarray. Despite the enthusiasm they project to their customers, their business is a dark one, and Alan's cheerful personality (if he's not laughing, he's whistling) makes it hard to sell ceremonial Japanese swords, deadly insects, and pre-noosed rope to their customers.

The Suicide Shop manages to straddle the uncomfortable line that innately comes when talking about suicide. The movie doesn't attempt to pass judgement on the shop's "customers". People from all walks of life are seen shopping for the method of death that's "right for them"; we aren't often told the stories about why they want to commit suicide. And perhaps this is for the best; the Tuvaches aren't trying to put the gun to your head, they're merely selling you the bullets. Entrepreneurs of death, in their own strange way. Once you have the means, the rest is your decision. But, in case their product fails, they offer a money back guarantee.

The animation itself is quite good, presenting the Tuvaches and their customers in thick outlines and various greys that stiffly move through the frames, whereas the jubilant son, Alan, bounces with colour and energy. There is a lot of detail packed into most of the backgrounds, making it a pleasure to watch. I wasn't huge on the 3-D (like many movies, it's hardly noticeable) but it's rarely a distraction, and the director even made the decision to make the movie brighter overall to help combat the unpleasant dimming effect from the glasses. Given the "flat" style of the animation, the 3-D works, in its own fashion. If possible, I think I would still recommend viewing it in 2-D however.

This is a musical, where characters can spontaneously break out in song, but don't expect any toe-tapping numbers here. The songs are generally competent, but they're not overall exciting. The lone exception is a scene where Monsieur Tuvache visits a psychiatrist, who proceeds to burst into energetic motions as he sings about his job. There are some interesting visuals that accompany some of the music, but the the musical numbers are quite forgettable.

The biggest flaw of this movie is its uneven plot. The relationships between the characters remind me in a lot of ways of The Simpsons, particularly the strained relationship between Monsieur Tuvache and his son Alan. The movie is supposed to be of Alan's desire to bring some cheer and happiness into the lives of his family, but that's not particularly an interesting narrative thread. The elder Tuvache meanwhile, is a man who is both charming and good at selling death to customers, but is troubled by his line of work (after all, if he's successful, he never sees his customers again). The movie spends too little time exploring Monsieur's contradictions, and instead includes a few farcical scenes where he and his son clash. The most puzzling is one where the elder Tuvache convinces young Alan to take up smoking, with head-scratching reasoning and no pay-off. Like the relationship between Homer and Bart, it's a perfectly acceptable idea in the film that a father might want to seriously harm his son out of anger, as long as no one is seriously hurt in the end.

The conclusion of the film is equally nonsensical, but certainly The Suicide Shop is not the first film to have its characters do a 180 when the plucky youth shows the adults the error of their ways.

Overall, The Suicide Shop is a fun little movie (it clocks in at a mere 79 minutes), but the whimsical animation is hampered by a fairly mediocre script. But it's still worth seeing if you like dark comedies, or quirky animated films. As a parental note, this movie probably isn't for kids. There is a moderate amount of swearing, and some brief nudity, although the violence is generally tasteful. This (I'm told) is pretty typical of European films, but still. I give this film a non-scientific 3/5.