Arabella is at funeral when she meets Darby, a relative who had been travelling but has returned home. He will only live to 10,000 days, Darby tells her, and illustrates this with the many deaths that occurred within his family tree at the age of 27 and a bit. Drawn to his magnetic doomed beauty, Arabella joins with him in his quest to squeeze the marrow out of his last few days alive. The next day though, he turns up assuming he must have got the days mixed up but sure that he will die soon.
This film is deliberately cheesy whether it be in the concept or in the back-project special effects (that even reveal the stand to the side of the screen) and it is this mockery of the subject that makes it enjoyable. The concept is that two people fall in love and for Arabella it seems to be that the doomed nature of Darby is what draws her to him, so when it turns out that life goes on, it produces a rather awkward change in the dynamics of their relationship. This awkwardness is quite funny and the two lead actors (O'Reilly and Wall) but have good comic timing and interaction – in particular O'Reilly's delivery gets a lot of laughs. The idea that just because someone is going to die and carries themselves with this dark acceptance makes them somehow wiser or more attractive than others is daft, but it is sometimes taken that way and this film mocks that view well. It is silly and by playing it straight it does sometimes end up a little less funny, but it is still a good idea that is well played.
This film is deliberately cheesy whether it be in the concept or in the back-project special effects (that even reveal the stand to the side of the screen) and it is this mockery of the subject that makes it enjoyable. The concept is that two people fall in love and for Arabella it seems to be that the doomed nature of Darby is what draws her to him, so when it turns out that life goes on, it produces a rather awkward change in the dynamics of their relationship. This awkwardness is quite funny and the two lead actors (O'Reilly and Wall) but have good comic timing and interaction – in particular O'Reilly's delivery gets a lot of laughs. The idea that just because someone is going to die and carries themselves with this dark acceptance makes them somehow wiser or more attractive than others is daft, but it is sometimes taken that way and this film mocks that view well. It is silly and by playing it straight it does sometimes end up a little less funny, but it is still a good idea that is well played.
