A big, sprawling ensemble in which the events leading up to and
following a drug deal are told from three different points of view,
Go crash-landed in 1999. Starring Sarah Polley,
Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr and
Timothy Olyphant, among others, it was a perfect marriage of sorts between
the stuttering, alternately wry and flippant style of screenwriter John August (who would go on to slave over the
Charlie’s Angels films and pen a trio of movies for Tim Burton, including
Big Fish) and the kinetic, hipster visual sense of director Doug Liman (who would go on to helm the first installment of the
Bourne
franchise). Even if one didn’t like the film, I think they’d concede
that it felt of a piece in its construction. There wasn’t a jarring,
at-odds collusion of visions;
Go was sleek and lupine, if not exactly a box office hit.
Though certainly less brash, and a more adult and pensive work in most respects, August’s latest film,
The Nines, loosely retains the same triptych structure as
Go, as well as the same sort of healthy disregard for purely linear pleasantries.
The Nines
is also notable because it’s Augusts’ feature debut behind the camera.
Unlike the thematically timid, familiar stories of half measures that
many a writer make for their directorial debuts — more intimately
scaled movies that feel like reaches across the table for salt and
pepper —
August’s The Nines is, psychologically speaking, a big, freewheeling affair, stuffed back within the confines of a tightly framed story.
Featuring three actors playing three parts apiece in three different
stories — roles that, apart from their place within discrete
narratives, may or may not have something to do with one another —
The Nines
could be described as being about the concentric circles of creativity,
and getting lost in the hazy mist of formation and development, both
personally and professionally, spiritually and emotionally. It’s about
creation and responsibility, and where those ideas overlap and end.
Confused? We haven’t even started yet.
The film’s first strand, dubbed “The Prisoner,” tells the story of a troubled actor, Gary (Ryan Reynolds), the hunky star of a small screen cop show, who goes on a boozy binge
and finds himself placed under house arrest, with a chipper junior
publicist Margaret (Melissa McCarthy) and disillusioned next-door
neighbor Sarah (Hope Davis, above right) as his only links to the outside world.
Eventually, Gary comes to wonder whether one or both women are
deceiving him about the nature of his incarnation. “Reality
Television,” the movie’s second segment, charts the production of a
half-hour episode of a
Project Greenlight-type
show tracking the creative progress of a network television drama
making its way through pilot season. Having shot the series opener,
writer-creator Gavin (Reynolds) faces some tough post-production
hurdles and challenges from development executive Susan (Davis) about
the suitability of his best friend and lead actress (McCarthy, playing
a same-named iteration of herself). Finally, in “Knowing,” an acclaimed videogame designer, Gabriel (Reynolds), faces car trouble deep in the woods.
Leaving behind his wife Mary (McCarthy) and mute daughter (Elle
Fanning) to track down help, Gabriel runs into Sierra (Davis), who
regards him suspiciously at first, but then slowly reveals that she
knows more about him than she was initially letting on.
In the film's press notes, August talks about
The Nines being “a question, not an
answer” — that its three sections are deliberately incongruous,
overlapping rather than snapping together neatly. Despite, or maybe because of this tack,
The Nines doesn’t
really cohere in a meaningful way; to call it too cute by half would be
terse, but also not at all inaccurate. The casting of Reynolds, Davis
and McCarthy give August a home run, and he additionally has an
undeniable touch with dialogue, finding artful ways for his characters
to say things in a manner that imparts both necessary information and
true personality. But the movie, never moving much beyond the feelings it generates solely in the moment, doesn't work
one’s id into a tizzy in the same manner that David Lynch's
Mulholland Drive or
François Ozon’s Swimming Pool,
two films that bear loose association, do, and its ending induces only sort of a shrug. If songs could sire movies, Brit pop band James' "Born of Frustration" would be the father of
The Nines.
For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.
