A wee bit of Googling tells me that some of the leading causes of death here in the good old U.S. of A. are heart disease,  COVID-19,* kidney disease, strokes, and cancer. Sure, accidental death cracked the top 10, but the majority are medical issues that tend to take us out slowly but surely. That means for most of us, we’ll see the end of life coming., at least this iteration of it.

So how do we deal with it? Most of us tend to deal with the inescapable fact of our mortality by not dealing with it. I get it, and I hate to be a killjoy, but we’re all going to die. Someday, and with luck, it’ll be many, many years in the future. We know it’s coming, but we don’t know when. And yet, what if you could choose the time, place, and manner of your death?

The idea of reckoning with mortality is one that’s been popular in film. Sometimes it’s about making amends and other times it focuses on crossing items off the to-do list for the last time. The Manhattan Project is a new film that’s part of that tradition. It’s flawed, and yet those flaws pale in comparison to the things it does so very right.

Bob (Terry Novak) has a good life, all things considered. He’s retired and lives in a cozy lakeside cabin. He’s not rich, but we get the sense that he’s got enough to live comfortably. That helps, considering his son Tom (Francisco Filice) has come back home. We also get the sense that Tom was, at one point, a gifted medical student. Something happened to cause him to drop out, and now he’s trying to figure out what to do next.

Bob will also have to figure out what to do next after he’s suddenly hospitalized. What he thinks are the regular rigors of age are actually a terminal diagnosis of cancer. Treatment isn’t much of an option, and the doctors can only extend his lifespan a minuscule amount. Bob doesn’t feel great and this is as good as he’s ever likely to feel. It only goes downhill from there.

As depressed as he might be, Tom springs into action. He wants a second opinion, a full array of options. After the lingering death of his mother, Tom simply isn’t ready for the same thing to happen to Bob. However, Bob has a different idea. You see, he makes a damn good Manhattan. He smokes the glass** and everything. Bob’s plan is to make a gallon container of Manhattans, drag his favorite chair out to the lake, get comfortably hammered, and quietly freeze to death.

Needless to say, Tom is not into Bob’s plan. Complicating things is Bill (Len Greenaway), Bob’s cheerfully oblivious neighbor, who’s in the midst of a feud with hippie Flow (Rozz McCann), Bob’s other neighbor. Plus, when the town gets wind of Bob’s plan, there’s a concern that his cheerful suicide attempt might depress the turnout of tourists. You can see how that would be top of mind, right?

I have to give director Matthew Campanile quite a lot of credit for jumping feet-first into a challenging project. Black comedies are hard. Dramedies are also hard. A black dramedy is a fiendishly difficult thing to pull off, and The Manhattan Project nearly does it. Where Campanile excels are the character moments between Bob and Tom. He creates a quiet rhythm as we hang out and watch the two men deal with decisions, both life-changing and life-ending. Campanile’s film is also quietly beautiful, and the cinematography lingers on Bob and his place within the lakeside.

The script by Campanile and Mark Chylinski is where problems occasionally pop up. The scenes focusing on Bob and Tom, their repressed emotion and their inability to communicate well work like gangbusters. When the focus is pulled back and we meet the rest of the town, the tone becomes inconsistent and the characterization gets too broad. For example, Bob’s neighbor Flow is a hippie pushing alternative medicines on him, and the joke you just imagined in your head about that is pretty much what made it to the screen. We’ve seen that gag before, and it’s as if the script expended so much energy on the fascinating A story, it decided to go for the most obvious jokes possible around the edges. As a result, the two stories never mesh effectively. One more strong draft that focused on the supporting characters with the same care as the leads would have fixed the issues.

Independent films like this rely on strong performances from their leads. When they can pull it off, the result forgives a host of sins. Terry Novak does excellent work showing us different sides of Bob. While he does seem to cruise through the stages of grief pretty quickly, he soon realizes that the end of life can be joyful when faced on his own terms. The tougher role is Tom, and Francisco Filice expertly portrays a man deep in the grip of both depression and repression. He’s watched his life fall apart, and now he has to put it on hold to try and save his father. It’s a subtle and heartfelt performance by Filice that deserves all credit.

At some point, I’m going to die. Croak. Kick the bullet. Bite the big one. Shuffle off this mortal coil. Become an ex-person. There’s a chance that, when it happens, I won’t have much of a choice in the matter. The Manhattan Project posits that sometimes a choice does exist. Is it a good one? I’m not sure, but I applaud this film for even asking the question.

*But isn’t the pandemic over? Didn’t we win?

**Why is a smoked glass a thing, you might be asking? It turns out that the act of smoking enhances the flavor of the drink and adds notes of..well, smoke. Here’s how to do it if you’re so inclined, but do me a favor and don’t set yourself on fire, okay?

Tim Brennan
Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.  
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