“On the Count of Three” (MA) ** and a half

WHAT goes through the mind of somebody who chooses suicide as a means of hastening a process that nature normally selects in its own good time? 

“On the Count of Three” proposes to try to offer a cogent cinematic explanation for DIY life-ending for which no matter of erudite scientific enquiry has, or could have, ever really succeeded. 

The filmmaker who has used our favourite communication medium to try to do the impossible is Afro-American director and star Jerrod Carmichael, whose filmmaking debut mines our laughter and a sweet friendship from the hopelessness of losing the will to live. 

His film could have very easily collapsed beneath its subject matter. Just explaining what it’s about is a hard sell. Anyone looking for an escape from daily life probably isn’t looking to immerse themselves in the story of two friends so desperate to escape the pain in their lives that they make a suicide pact.

The fact that Carmichael took this story as his directorial debut is an act of pure confidence that balances the dark with the heartfelt. It gets points for its warm heartache and, most of all, the watcher’s laughter as it explores a plot where the protagonists plan their day around violence and suicide. 

Will you like “On the Count of Three”? It’s supposed to be a comedy. Be brave. People in the real world bared their souls to bring it to you. A comedy’s supposed to be funny. Funny offers a choice between two meanings – ha-ha and peculiar. Writers Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch jointly won the screenplay class with it at last year’s Sundance Film Festival – and that ain’t peanuts. 

At Dendy