Review of Wrong (2013) by Gentlegiant1972 — 27 May 2020

I first watched WRONG when I was in high school. I had already seen Rubber and thought it was fun. WRONG was disappointing. I thought it was a boring incoherent mess, and I even fell asleep partway through.

I re-watched it recently and it left a much different impression. On my re-watch I found it way more engaging and really funny. Most of the reviews classify this as a surrealist film, but I think Dupieux, whether intentionally or not, created an existentially comedic masterpiece.

I'm not going to go into why this film works so well if you read as existentialist, because it'd be full of spoilers. The spoiler free version is that characters are constantly placed in an absurd reality that they take completely serious.

There is one sequence near the end of the film that typifies this perfectly. The thing that makes the comedic aspects of this film work so well is that unlike most existentialist literature where characters would recognise the absurd futility of their reality and rebel against it, none of the characters in the film seem to even consider the absurdity of their situations, nor use their free will to do.

.. anything really. The result is a tension between the characters and the story world that I found extremely funny. In summation, this film isn't for everyone, but if you have a high tolerance for the bizarre and enjoy dry humour, I think this will be a really fun treat.