Director: Patrice Leconte
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 2.0
Sunken-eyed Mishima (named after the great Yukio, I imagine) and wife Lucrèce run the tremendously popular "Suicide Shop" in France, selling all sorts of creative tools to off one's self (from gasses to poisonous drinks to cinder blocks), but run into a problem when they sire their youngest son Alan, a life-affirming, perpetually cheerful, sister-ogling (?) miscreant whose optimistic disposition runs counter to their desire to help the despondent End It All. As part-musical the songs are completely forgettable and it is altogether rather superficial (Mom handles son Alan's destroying the family business rather well; conveniently, a young man in the store falls in love with the plump sister in an instant), although the black comedy aspects are rather amusing, particularly the types of 'customers' the store receives ... and how quickly the police tag the very recently-deceased (but don't remove the bodies). Leconte's dealt with morbid and quirky subject matter before (The Hairdresser's Husband), although to my knowledge this is the only time he's worked with animation (which is functional if indistinctive).
