On the Count of Three: a brilliantly uneasy suicide pact comedy

“A wonderfully confident debut, and a woefully timeless take on what makes it possible to weather the slings and arrows, if not exactly survive them.”

2 February 2021

By Kelli Weston

On the Count of Three (2021)
Sight and Sound

Comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s bold directorial debut often makes for uneasy viewing – a buddy comedy centered around a suicide pact – but he deftly sticks the landing. The tonal tightrope between humor and grief; the chemistry between him and the reliably brilliant Christopher Abbott; the sombre, tentative optimism at the end of a tunnel of trauma.

Somewhat fatefully their last day ends up organised around confrontations with abusive paternal figures, but all the brighter moments – fleeting until they’re not, for all those moments begin to add up – hinge on their authentic, natural, dysfunctional and ultimately hopeful connection with each other.

These are, after all, deeply hopeless men under all their charm and faux bravado, at their most courageous (for better or worse) when driven to protect each other. It’s a wonderfully confident debut, and a woefully timeless take on what makes it possible to weather the slings and arrows, if not exactly survive them.

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