Black
comedies can be quite difficult to do well when they’re about a
subject that is normally off limits where joking is concerned. You
make things too funny and things can be disrespectful; you make
things too heavy and, well… that’s not a black comedy, that’s just
a tragedy with an ice breaker here and there. There have been a few films
that I have seen over the years that I was not even aware were considered black
comedies until I looked them up on Wikipedia long after the fact, and I am
never sure if this is because the ratio was off or if I
just wasn’t dialed into the humor for whatever reason. On the
Count of Three has a good deal of this unevenness, but it has
even more moments where the balance is pretty darn good.
First premiering at the 2021 Sundance
Film Festival and finally hitting Hulu in 2022 as a “Hulu Original,” On
the Count of Three is a story of two very depressed friends who decide
to commit suicide together, but not until after they have one last day
unfettered by the promise of consequences to come. The directorial debut of
comedian Jerrod Carmichael (who also stars as Val), On the Count of
Three starts out grim. Going into this movie blind as I did, I had no
idea that it was intended to be a black comedy for the first thirty minutes or
so as Val and his best friend Kevin (played by Christopher Abbott) discuss very
heavy subjects like suicidal depression, bullying, and broken homes, and any
dark humor that was attempted had a tendency to make things more sad
than anything else. I could see that this little indie film was going to be one
of those rough but hopefully worth-it stories, but just when I thought I had
figured out what On the Count of Three was, a scene came along
that was genuinely funny in that dark kind of way. From then until the
penultimate scene, the drama (which is very well done, by the way) hits that
nice balance with the chuckles. Usually black comedy/drama
films shoo out the clowns at the end of the film, but On the
Count of Three makes the additional weird choice of
not inviting the clowns in until we are halfway done already.
Despite this unevenness of
tone between halves, On the Count of Three works pretty
well, mostly because it never treats mental illness, the idea of suicide, or
the characters themselves as a joke. The acting is exceptional (especially in
the case of the two leads), the direction and cinematography are very well
done, and the soundtrack hits that sweet spot that only indie films are usually
capable of hitting. On the Count of Three is a tragedy about
what life and mental illness can do to people, but it also has a deeper message
of friendship and putting others first that I greatly
appreciated.
On the Count of Three is
now available on Hulu.
This review was first published in The Keizertimes on
December 16th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
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