On the Count of Three

Val and Kevin are childhood friends and neither of them wants to live. They point guns at each other in a car park, then back off and decide to live one more day, on the condition that they finish it by nightfall. In the hours left, they go to see the people they want to settle with. The subject is not suicide but the sudden freedom of someone who has decided to die. With nothing left to lose, Val goes to his boss and Kevin to the doctor who harmed him as a child. The film finds that freedom both funny and terrifying. The form is small and direct: a car, a few locations, two actors. The tonal shifts between comedy and darkness are not smoothed out; you laugh and freeze in the same scene. It is Jerrod Carmichael's first film as a director, and he also plays Val, opposite Christopher Abbott. The screenplay is by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch. It premiered at Sundance in 2021 and took a screenwriting award there, reaching general release in 2022. Who it is for: viewers who like black comedy and two-hander road films. Who it is not for: anyone for whom the subject itself will be too heavy; the film does not soften suicide and does not tie off its ending anywhere easy.