The dark subject of suicide is used as an unlikely starting point for the whimsically optimistic Wristcutters: A Love Story.

Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) plays Zia, a young man who slits his wrists to spite his ex-girlfriend for dumping him. He awakes to find himself dead, stuck working at a pizza parlor in a subdivision of the afterlife full of other suicide victims.

This limbo isn’t hell, in fact it’s kind of like a watered-down version of life. There are no flowers, no smiles and little color. The only restaurants are generic fast-food joints. There is only freeway and desert. It’s like Arizona — but worse.

Zia befriends Eugene, played by Shea Whigham, whose name and likeness come from Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hütz. Eugene lives with his family. That’s right: Each member of his family committed suicide, and all for different reasons.

After learning his ex-girlfriend killed herself in the months following his suicide, Zia convinces Eugene to let him use his car, which lacks headlights and has a black hole under the passenger seat. Eugene joins him on the trip, and along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker named Mikal, played by Shannyn Sossamon.

Mikal contests that she got to this afterlife by mistake, as her suicide was accidental. She joins their journey, in search of some mythical overseers that can set her situation right.

Tom Waits plays Kneller, a man the trio nearly runs over because he is sleeping, evidently drunk, in the middle of the street. Kneller explains he is in search of his dog Freddy and that he runs a commune where he prevents suicide victims from killing themselves again. Kneller’s camp is home to miracles. Not major miracles — little miracles, like people levitating 3 feet off the ground and fish changing colors. It’s an unusual place — but it’s an unusual afterlife.

Will Arnett has a hilarious cameo as a so-called messiah — part Jim Jones, part Gob Bluth — who led a mass suicide during his life on earth.

Each actor’s performance is excellent, as is the soundtrack featuring Tom Waits and Gogol Bordello. But, what’s most impressive about Wristcutters is that it strikes a perfect balance of fantasy and humor, with just the right amount of quirk.

Wristcutters overlooks the trivial questions that I found myself dwelling on. What about the animals in limbo — did they kill themselves, too? Or, were they put there to make the afterlife a bit more bearable for its inhabitants, who are already prone to depression? Perhaps this question is best left to debate.

In a more serious sense, Wristcutters has the deeper message of choosing life over death. The movie pokes fun at its characters’ irrational decisions to kill themselves, and they’re forced to live eternity in the misery they were trying to escape to begin with. Zia and Mikal’s journey is their own attempt to find life after death because being dead is no fun.

Reach contributing writer Andrew Mitrak at weekender@dailyuw.com.