Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,”   Put that into practice for about ninety minutes and you have Wellness, a film described by its director as a “soul-crushing comedy” but one I found merely soul-crushing.

Thomas Lindsey (Jeff Clark) is involved in a pyramid scheme.  The phrase “pyramid scheme” is never once uttered, but it couldn’t be more obvious if they employed graphs and other visual aids.  But there’s no such flair to be found in Wellness.  Director Jack Mahaffy uses handheld, 4:3 video to shoot the film and while such an approach is a good first step in conveying the mundane pain of Lindsey’s story, I wish Mahaffy had gone one step further and still set up his shots as if he were telling a story with lighting and framing rather than just conveying tonality. 

The film’s greatest asset is in Jeff Clark.  It’s a painful performance and were a big-name actor in this role, this film would be picked up for distribution and the “For Your Consideration” ads would be printing right now.  Again, it’s a strong first step, but there aren’t enough characters to contrast against Lindsey.  At the beginning of the film, we meet Paul (Paul Mahaffy), the man who’s conning Lindsey.  The interplay between them really helps illuminate Clark’s character and without it, I found myself judging Thomas rather than empathizing with him. 

I personally didn’t find the film that funny, but I suppose there’s comedy for those of a certain sensibility. If you thought Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was funny, you’ll think Wellness is a laugh-riot.    But if you’re like me, you’ll mostly just feel drained, tired, and slowly realizing that while Wellness just kicked the shit out of your soul, it didn’t really leave you anything to think about except that the film that needed a bit more polish to realize its full potential.

(C )