“You Might As Well [not] Live” if you watch this
Robert R. Mutt on his bus ride home
You Might As Well Live is honestly one of the worst films I have seen since Jackass. I remember coming back to the house here in Park City after watching this and feeling like I had wasted my money, and more importantly my brain cells, just by watching this film. It begins where this man named Robert R Mutt is attempting to committ suicide by jumping off a bridge over no more than a few feet of river. He doesn’t succeed and gets taken to an insane asylum where they are permitted to participate in several activities such as air hockey and eating contests.
When a new doctor comes along, and challenges him to an air hockey competition, Robert wins, and video tape later confirms that the air hockey game he played helped to pull him out of depression. Because he was no longer depressed, he was released from the psych ward and told to go home. When he returns home, he finds his sister has turned into a rockstar-wannabe with too much make up, their uncle as her manager. Robert’s mother is a vegetable, being kept alive through machines. To top it off, the street is throwing their annual party, and the clown (Fred Steinke, played by Stephen McHattie) accusing Robert of emailing child porn around the town. While clearly innocient, the town is still convinced that Robert is the child porn creator, and they continually chase after him through the entire film.
Through drug induced dreams and visions, Robert finds his childhood and adulthood hero Clinton Manitoba, (played by Michael Madsen), and several other friends, who show him that the real important thing in life, is to have a job, have a girl, and have money. Through his quest for money, Robert comes across a male dressed as a female, a drug and supplies mover, and a bar full of friendly people. While this sounds like a great story, it really is portrayed as a series of unfortunate events which lead from one to the next, and wouldn’t necessarily all happen to one person.
However, not everything was terrible about this film. It had a great message hidden inside the stupidity. It’s message was simply to be yourself, because everybody is a somebody. Robert however, didn’t know that he was a somebody, because he had been treated so badly by the world, and so well inside of the institute. When I watched this film, I felt at several times that I should have just gotten up and walked out, however, I didn’t want to waste the money, and I secretly hoped that it would make a turn for the better. With the cheesey ending, I felt as though I had wasted my time. The plot was my main problem with the film, the cinematography was nice though, and the actors worked well with the film.
Tags: Lizzy Kirkham, Robert R Mutt, slamdance, You Might As Well Live