Wil (2006) Reviews

• Faced with the prospect of a promotion Wil Schindel must decide whether it's time to take a voluntary redundancy from the rat race

  andrea-cally2006-10-20

  Meet Wil (Matt Dyktynski), a young creative trapped in an accountant's body whose subconscious has been sequestered in a lift. Up until now, Wil has never reviewed his role in the rat race or his plans for the future. But the prospect of a promotion, requiring a ten-year commitment puts Wil's mind into overdrive. With sixty seconds on the clock, Wil Schindel literally watches his life flash before his eyes, as he travels up and down life's elevator accompanied by a cast of characters with conflicting advice about which direction he should take. With the press of a button Wil is able to travel between the past, the present and future, each containing its own unique landscape, including a cemetery, his mother's womb, a sauna, a bank and a prison. Wil's ride on the elevator becomes a spiritual journey and as he ascends he comes closer to realizing his higher self. As he journeys upward the cables begin to break, sending him crashing back to reality where he must face that eternal question 'Wil' he or won't he (take the promotion)? Cute and quirky, Wil is a light-hearted look at life's little ups and downs. The film taps into a common preoccupation—how to be happy and find balance and direction. First-time feature director Jeremy Weinstein confidently directs a fine cast, including Matt Dyktynski (most recognizable from The Secret Life of Us) Max Gillies as the perplexed therapist and a cameo by Colin Lane (of Lano and Woodly fame) as a game show host.

• This review analyzes the film Wil as an example of the Existentialism of Generation X

  valparaiso9312006-10-26

  The Existentialism of Generation X Jeremy Weinstein's new film Wil is a small budget, independently made Australian production. Although only low budget and a young director's first full feature, Wil has already secured a couple of important awards in the USA as well as an invitation to the prestigious Hollywood festival. On the surface, Weinstein's film looks simple, almost too shallow. This is a story of a young thirty-something accountant, bored with his job and his life who considers whether to sign a contract with his employer for the next ten years. The action is set in an elevator which symbolizes the protagonist's claustrophobic, restricted existence. But, this apparently simple story has many layers of meaning and entails more complex universal issues. The protagonist, Wilbur Schindel, a well paid professional with a secure job, beautiful wife and a comfortable life, represents, in my view, the anguish of the post-modernist Generation X. His life may be comfortable but he is far from happy. Wil wants "something more in his life". He feels trapped in his claustrophobic, predictable and boring existence, so well represented by the corporate lift in which the action of the film entirely takes place. He is desperately trying to find what would make him happy. ("Happy place, happy place, happy place") In his uncompromising search for happiness he challenges the very foundation of his community existence: his marriage, family relations and customs, religion, work ethic, financial security. In his search for happiness Wil also seeks the answers to universal existentialist questions: Why are we here? What is the purpose of our existence? Is there a destiny or fate or is our future determined by our choices? Does God exist? What does it mean to be happy? Is there a right ethical system to follow? Where do we get our values from? Wil tries to understand his identity. Who is he as a person? After all he might have not existed at all. Conceived accidentally, saved from abortion by his mother's strong will and against his father's wishes, he is constructed by societal and cultural determinants. To what degree is he free to choose his destiny? This immediately brings to mind associations with the literary and philosophical works of the twentieth century Existentialists. According to the French philosopher and writer, J.P. Sartre "Man is nothing else but that what he makes of himself". Like a true existentialist hero, Wil attempts to change his life. He is no longer going to accept his fate without questioning. He is not going to give up thinking, and accept the law of three Gs: "Get up, Go to work, Go home. That's it, no thinking required". He is going to rebel! In his struggle for true meaning of life and happiness he is ready to deconstruct his life in a real post-modernistic sense: to sacrifice and destroy his marriage, his career, his reputation, his sexuality and the relationship he has with his parents. His sacrifice would make him both heroic and human, like the protagonists in the works of Sartre and Camus. But is he sincere? We have some doubts. Unlike his French existentialist predecessors, the Generation X hero cannot be serious about anything. He is auto-ironic all the time. In a world of many values and different beliefs, there is no single correct choice for him. Like many of his contemporaries, Wil's existentialist angst is auto-ironically denied by the artistic form of a satire boarding on the absurd.. (Monty Python Flying circus meets the South Park.) Baby Boomers, brought up to worship real existentialist heroes, cringe. This is a sacrilege! Why? The existentialism of Generation X takes revered existentialist questions of the twentieth century and toys with them in a post-modernist fashion: • adopting a quirky and grotesque form that borders on absurdity and belittles the issues • presenting a view of truth that is totally relative, • using a concrete rather than an abstract setting, (which makes it appear trivial) • using non-linear as opposed to chronological thinking, (which makes it appear messy) • denying almost everything it suggests through the power of irony. The voice-over at the end of the film warns us that perhaps we should not take it all too seriously. Somehow at the end we have a feeling that Wil's mutiny is only temporary, a kind of demonstration of a free spirit that escapes the cage only to find out that the world is too dangerous and too scary to take it on full force. We have the feeling that Wil might take the job after all and return to his peaceful albeit boring existence. A fine cast includes Matt Dyktynski as Wilbur Schindel, Jude Beaumont as his wife Tracy, Evelyn Krape and Terry Camilleri, as his parents, Max Gillies as the therapist and Isabella Dunwill as the secretary and the voice of reason. One cannot help but to admire the young director who dares to confront the established values of his community and does it in such a hilarious and peculiar way. I enjoyed the film very much and am not surprised by the number of awards it has won so far at the various festivals. However, I am afraid that the film's satirical portrayal of stereotypes and its challenging disrespect for traditional values and beliefs may prove too confronting for more conservative audiences.