Julian Po is a man who walks into a small town one day. The residents of the town are immediately suspicious, and quickly press Julian to divulge the reason for his presence. He reluctantly tells them he came to kill himself. And thus begins a vivid exploration of the town's curiosity and Po's experience of being on the spot.

This film is a gem, an unexpected glittering piece of propositional logic. The premise of this film has perhaps never occurred in real life, but the extrapolations are both clever and insightful, whimsical and weighty. I don't know what to call this - it's not funny enough for comedy, and not really what we expect from drama. Perhaps we need a new category of Existential Americana or some such.

The ending leaves open a wide opportunity to question the film. Clearly, there is a difficulty in deciding an end due to the subject matter. My angle on this is that the choice made, in fact, fits the story. I'll leave it an exercise to the viewer to watch and form an opinion on the matter, but I certainly expect some dissention there.

Christian Slater does a fine job as Po. His mustache only serves to reinforce his likeness to Jack Nicholson in some of his recent roles. Yet his appearance is largely submerged by the role, which is definitely good for the film.

Slater is surrounded by a slew of excellent character actors, all serving to reflect Po's humanity back on him.

I don't think Julian Po will agree with everyone's tastes, but it's truly an excellent small film that deserves better recognition than it's gotten.