"We are all connected to everyone and everything on this planet."-- Aidan Quinn in "Nine Lives."
Rodrigo García's splendid ensemble drama considers these connections, this continuity, in its depiction of nine disparate women at some emotional crossroads, nine separate yet occasionally linked stories with an intensely strong female character at their center. Stories such as an incarcerated felon in the L.A. County lock-up, encouraged to swap information for privileges; or a highly-strung nurse struggling to come to terms with her abusive past; or a mother picnicking with her eerily distant daughter.
These and another half dozen equally powerful vignettes, each running less than fifteen minutes on average, share several strong commonalities:
1. They're all shot in a single, beautifully choreographed take. No breaks or interruptions help concentrate the focus of each segment, a technique that proves essential given the limited amount of time allocated each episode. It also forces the performers to be more "on" when hitting their marks and/or delivering their dialogue, like stage players;
2. The stories end abruptly, ambiguously, yet on just the right note, a high or low point fading furtively to black; and
3. Each story features superlative performances from its intelligent cast, of men as well as women, but mostly women--especially those playing the nine in question--coupled with skilled writing (never once overwritten) and solid direction, these last two courtesy writer/director García (who attempted something similar with 2000's "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her").
Former lovers Damian (Jason Isaacs) and Diana (Robin Wright Penn) bump supermarket trolleys in a trendy California neighborhood store. In the ensuing ten years or so each has married and Diana is heavily pregnant. Damian makes the mistake of telling Diana he still thinks about her--often--causing her much confusion and consternation.
Lorna ("Judging Amy"'s Amy Brenneman) attends her ex-husband's wife's funeral against her better judgment and, amid the expected hostility, finds her repressed feelings unexpectedly reciprocated by the hearing- impaired Andrew (William Fichtner).
Rather than heading off to college as planned, Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) has chosen to remain at home to care for her paraplegic father (Ian McShane) while her mother (Sissy Spacek) contemplates a motel tryst with another man (an initially unrecognizable Aidan Quinn).
Despite the potential, the film as a whole doesn't come across as a gimmicky exercise. Not one bit. Some of the characters do overlap-- García didn't want it that way; the studio did and won--but they overlap minimally, reflecting more life's strange little coincidences than the contrived mechanics of the plot (as was the case with this year's "Crash," another ensemble drama with interrelated, free-flowing characters). Unlike other similarly-structured films that either improve--or weaken--the further you get into them, "Nine Lives" remains constant throughout, with each life as potent and exhilarating as the next, each installment offering something a little bit different, a little bit special.
"Nine Lives" might not be entirely different a motion picture but it *is* special, at once memorable and moving, volatile and surprisingly resonant, much like its rich and principled principals.
By: David N. Butterworth
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 4
Robin Wright Penn, in a small but breath-taking performance that one hopes the Academy will remember at Oscar time, plays Diana, a woman who looks like she's hiding a super-sized basketball under her clingy maternity dress. While at the grocery story, she sees the man of her dreams, a guy named Damian (Jason Isaacs). They were once "Damian and Diana," he reminds her, as if that joint name held the same magic as "Sonny and Cher." Now married, but not to each other, they still have an inescapable bond. As they giggle and flirt together like young teenagers, Diana becomes increasingly uncomfortable. She wants badly to be with Damian and she resents the uncontrollable pull that his mere presence has for her. With her emotions heightened by the hormones of pregnancy, she begins to cry profusely. But, no sooner have we gotten to know this ill-fated couple than they disappear.
NINE LIVES, by writer and director Rodrigo García, whose previous film was TEN TINY LOVE STORIES, uses the medium of the short film to construct a full length motion picture. Diana's story is but one of nine such stories of women and the people around them. All the stories were filmed in one single take. Some of the stories share some common supporting characters, but the script doesn't use the structure of SHORT CUTS or CRASH, in which the stories are all tightly intertwined. In NINE LIVES, the stories almost all stand alone and could be viewed independently. What they share most of all is a strong sense of place -- one is set in a jail and another in funeral parlor -- and an absolute honesty. All of the characters are genuine and most are touching in various ways.
In another strong story, Richard (Joe Mantegna), the husband of Camille (Kathy Baker), an angry and anxious woman about to undergo a mastectomy, have a discussion just as she is about to enter the operating room. "We're nothing," she argues. "We're dreams and bones." She goes on to complain about how we are at the mercy of strangers. But having a positive outlook and not about to be operated on himself, her husband responds to her with quiet assurance and confidence, "We're not at the mercy of each other. We're connected."
You'll be connected to the stories, all of them. My only warning is not to expect a final wrap-up in the ending sequence, since this story featuring Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning has no link with the previous stories. But, as a story, it is another fine one.
NINE LIVES runs 1:55. It is rated R for "language, brief sexual content and some disturbing images" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 28, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
By : Steve Rhodes (http://www.internetreviews.com/)
