Nueve Días

If we're lucky, a couple of times a year we get a film that on face value may not appear to be anything truly special but upon watching casts a magical spell over willing viewers to create something noteworthy and memorable, in 2021 one of those such films is Edson Oda's moving debut feature Nine Days.

Much like the Nicolas Cage starring Pig from this year, a film that managed to become much more than just another Nicolas Cage film or a budget Taken with hooves, the Spike Jonze produced Nine Days for all intents and purposes seems like a small film that could be a nice way to pass some time but from the moment Oda's beautifully constructed fantasy drama begins, there's a sense that you're in for something outside of the normal, something unique and something that feeds the soul within.

Following Winston Duke's (never better than he is here as a broken but kind hearted man) reclusive and softly spoken Will as he goes about his job monitoring people's lives on small TV screens in front of him and interviewing prospective souls for vacant positions to become a living breathing human, Nine Days concept may ask viewers to give up their prejudices but for anyone willing to go along with Oda's ode to what it means to be human and the gift that is everyday living, this unique and touching experience may just be the type of film that continues to linger on in your memory and even change the way you view your own human experience.

Shot with a keen eye by cinematographer Wyatt Garfield and scored with grace by famed composer Antonio Pinto, Nine Days is a complete all round feature package lead by Oda's impressively refined direction and a collection of great performances from Duke, the radiant Zazie Beetz as prospective human Emma, Benedict Wong as Will's only real friend Kyo and some nice little supporting turns from Bill Skarsgård an Tony Hale as some of the other souls Will must choose as worthy to be gifted life in the world we call our own.

We're never told exactly where Nine Days takes place or why things are as they are (particularly why VHS tapes seem to be the go to for Will's job) but really none of that matters as the joys you will discover when watching Oda's film and the learnings both his characters and we as viewers have through the films constantly engaging run time ensure that this is a gripping, moving and heartwarming tale filled with some of the most affectionate and touching material you could hope to find in a film.

Final Say -

A wonderful debut from Edson Oda who has marked himself down as a director of note with his efforts here, Nine Days is an unforgettable little film about the big things. Providing a beautiful viewer experience, Nine Days is one of 2021's best and a film deserving to be discovered by a bigger audience than it was afforded upon release.

5 bike rides out of 5.

I may have ultimately found this somewhat more intellectually stimulating than emotionally, regarding the many philosophical and moral paths and implications that go into what one does in a life and how one regards violence and being violence or passive and of course what creativity brings about. The filmmaker Edson Oda - first feature as a writer-director and by itself that makes this a pretty major achievement to me - pulls off that tricky thing pretty well of exploring the ideas of simply living a "good" life or being a person wrought with inner pain and anguish (and what hiding that does to those who care about them) without falling into pedantry - in brief, it tackles empathy by putting it through the characters' perspectives. He provides a captivating backdrop, spare but interesting, without over explaining the mechanics of how these subjects are right at this place

There is an obvious point that is a flaw which is just how exceptional and perceptive Zazie Beets is (like once she's there game over you know). Buy Winston Duke is great at channeling a lot of preprinted thoughts and feelings, sometimes so explosively it could go the other way and not work but he always holds it together, and it is a surprisingly moving moment when he just talks about when his character was alive and performing a monologue he had to memorize last minute... to that end Walt Whitman (or at least his seminal work) makes an appearance!

This is a really "different" story and in the DVD extras we find the writer-director was inspired by a suicide in his own extended family. Not knowing anything else one might expect an environment of glass and white walls, images of beings dressed in long flowing robes, observing people via some form of advanced technology unknown to the real world.

Instead we see a person, once alive and named Will, in what seems to be an old house in the salt flats of Utah and observing people on 15 or 20 color TV sets from the 1980s. He takes notes and by the number of days in the notations some are approaching 30 years of age. Some lives are recorded on VHS tapes. Then something tragic happens and he must interview a number of souls to pick one to become a human on Earth. For those who are rejected it is the end of the line, they will never get another chance. The process will take nine days.

I'm not sure how to think of this story, perhaps best as an allegory of our own lives. How we go about our lives, how we make decisions, including decisions of morals. There is no question the movie makes one think and my wife and I enjoyed the almost 2 hours of viewing. However in reality is will be quickly forgotten.

At home on DVD from our public library.

I desperately wanted to connect with this movie. The premise was so interesting and I knew that if done right it had the p[potential to be extremely powerful and tug at the heart-strings. It also had the potential to make you question the value of your existence. Unfortunately it did none of those things for me. I just couldn't connect with it. I kept waiting for it to find its rhythm and it just never did.

The film is well made. It's beautifully shot, there's some great dialogue and the acting is great. It can't be faulted in those ways. But none of that matters if you can't connect with your audience. When you read the synopsis for this film you know is going to be a unique and daring experience. Films like this take risks and even if they don't pay off they have to be admired.

I can't personally recommend this film because it was not for me. That's not to say that you won't find something in it though. In fact I'd love it if others could find in this film what I could not. Maybe I'll watch this film 10-15 years from now and find what I missed first time around. 5/10.

The title Nine Days makes me think of a cat's nine lives or Beethoven's ninth-symphonic celebration of life. Anyhow, the Brazilian-born, US-based writer director Edson Oda has a terrific Terrance-Malick-like ode to life with an imaginative sci-fi indie that takes us to where no artist has ever gone.

Somewhere in a limbo-like desert a few souls not yet born but in human form try out in front of Will (Winston Duke), who will decide which one deserves to be human. Among them are a sybarite Alexander (Tony Hale), a perpetually-feeling-victimized candidate, Mike (David Rysdahl), and a rationalist (Bill Skarsgard). Best of all is the free spirit Emma (Zazie Beetz), whom Will can't understand until later on in the days.

Although they are learning about "real life" from multiple TV monitors from earth private lives, what they learn in these nine testing days is all they need to know about what it means to be human. Will's baggage from real life is instructive about the vicissitudes of life and the attendant longing for permanent love.

Because the candidates are regularly asked to document the grace moments of their short lives (e.g., laughing with someone, letting sand sift through fingers), they provide us with the paradigm for a happy life: enjoy the small things. Oda even uses Whitman's lyrical celebration of himself to capture this carpe diem attitude.

As I left the theater in high spirits, I was ultra-happy to have won a spot in life thinking how difficult Oda made candidacy for his purgatory-like suffering souls. I celebrated the small things of life as well as myself.

Nine Days is an inspirational film with enough suspense and new ideas to satisfy a wide spectrum of audiences.

See it and love life. At Gateway and several theaters.