WELCOME to the after life. Not the one the nuns at Our Lady of Mount Carmel insisted was my right if I was a good guy on Earth.
This one, as depicted in “Wristcutters: A Love Story,” is inhabited only by people who committed suicide.
It’s dingy and run-down, and its residents have lost the ability to smile. It’s not heaven, to be sure, but it’s not that other place, either.
A young man named Zia (Patrick Fugit) finds himself in this strange land after slitting his wrists over the loss of his blond-bombshell girlfriend, Desiree (Leslie Bibb).
He gets a job at Kamikaze Pizza (slicing wrists and slicing pizza have much in common, I guess).
Discovering one day that Desiree, too, has “offed” herself, Zia drives off into the desert to find her.
He’s joined by a Russian rocker, Eugene (Shea Whigham), whose entire family did itself in, and Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), an exotic, short-haired beauty who’s looking for the people who run the place because, she insists, she didn’t commit suicide and wants out.
Before long, the three hook up with the kooky Kneller (raspy-voiced musician Tom Waits, no less).
Croatian-born director-writer Goran Dukic instills “Wristcutters” with the absurdist humor you find in films from the Balkans.
The result is wholly original, sort of like “The Wizard of Oz” as filtered through the sensibilities of Emir Kusturica, the cult filmmaker and musician.
WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY
Running time: 91 minutes. Rated R (suicide). At the Union Square, the Empire and the Lincoln Plaza.
vam@nypost.com