Nine Lives (2005)

The key scene in Rodrigo Garcia's "Nine Lives" comes when Sissy Spacek, hidden away in a hotel room where she is carrying on an affair with Aiden Quinn, find a nature documentary on television, at which point Quinn notes the contrivance of such things--disparate footage is edited into one scene, predators and preys are thrown together in order to capture the moment--all to force connections where none actually exist. Characters in the nine shorts that make up this film occasionally spill over into each others stories, but none of them ever seem to really connect. A woman preparing for a violent confrontation with her abusive father is later seen working in a hospital room where another woman is preparing for a mastectomy. A man who runs into an old girlfriend in a supermarket and sees how his life should have been later hosts, with his current wife, a dinner party for an unhappy couple. Garcia arranges some of his characters in front of each other, but none of the subsequent stories ever really build on what came before.

Garcia's first film, the wonderful, overlooked "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her," also had a short-story structure and overlapping characters, but there were fewer of them and they had a lot more room to breathe and grow. The gimmicky premise of "Nine Lives," that each of its nine stories is told in a single, unbroken take in real time, never allows the film to build up any real dramatic tension or momentum. It's also a fairly visually ugly movie. Interior shots are often murky and hard to watch, while other scenes--particularly one where a girl walks back and forth between rooms to talk to her uncommunicative parents--are rendered annoying by the camera-work. Given that this is Garcia's third film and that he has a respectable history of directing for television, the direction in this film is rather surprisingly amateurish. Like fellow filmmaker-child-of-a-great-writer Rebecca Miller, Garcia (son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez) is focused on the writing and character aspects of his films often to the detriment of the film-making ones.

Individual scenes are touching and even affecting. I did like Jason Issacs kissing Robin Wright Penn's pregnant belly. And Joe Mantegna whispering lovingly to his wife as she slips into pre-surgery sedation. And Sissy Spacek stealing a few happy moments away from her life with Aiden Quinn before brought back to it with a phone call from her daughter. But the film (unlike "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her") feels more like an exercise than actual drama. We are just watching people act.

Fmovies: "Nine Lives" is a pretty unusual movie: nine slices of life, each a single shot, and each focusing on a female character. The stories are all quiet, everyday dramas, often ending before they achieve a complete resolution, and while a few of the themes are edgy, they're never treated with sensationalism. It's the polar opposite of the flashy, jokey, commercial Hollywood blockbuster.

Though characters reappear from one vignette to the other, these stories are connected more by theme than by character. There's an obvious theme about the roles that women play-- mother, daughter, sister, wife, etc.--and how these roles can conflict with one another and cause distress. In the first three stories, the main female character gets so distraught that she ends up crying--though a good challenge for actresses, this seems to reinforce stereotypes that women are weepy. Luckily, some of the other women are more resilient.

Also running throughout is a theme about the impossibility of communication, even between loved ones. Sometimes this theme is dramatized in subtle, effective ways, such as an imprisoned woman talking through glass when her daughter visits, or a teenage girl mediating between her parents. Other times this seems more contrived, especially the decision to make one character's ex-husband a deaf man who uses sign language.

Because of the recurring characters, "Nine Lives" is also one of those recent Los Angeles ensemble movies about how everyone is connected. (e.g. "Crash," "Magnolia.") Here the connections are clever but not especially profound. Having a puzzle like this to solve while watching the film helps hold your interest, but the puzzle feels incomplete. I was waiting for everything to come together at the end, but the last vignette, featuring Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning in a cemetery, has no characters from the other stories in it. Thematically speaking, though, it's not a bad way to end the movie.

Ultimately, "Nine Lives" shows that there are just as many pitfalls as pleasures in its unique style of film-making. It's wonderful to be reminded of the potential of long takes, how fluidly cameras can move nowadays and how well talented actors can sustain their performances. But while a typical movie would cut around the most mundane parts of life--people walking from one place to another, for example--"Nine Lives" has no choice but to show this. I also wished for more striking visual imagery or close-ups of the actors' performances, but due to these technical limitations, most of the movie is in medium or long shot.

Some people would claim that "Nine Lives" is inherently a great movie because it's not flashy or funny or commercial. But after seeing it, appreciating its technical qualities but feeling lukewarm about its overall effect, I've come to realize that flashiness is not always a bad thing. This is a movie that sorely needs some zest and energy in order to feel truly alive.

Another great movie by Rodrigo García in the same style as "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000)." Garcia shows his literary roots by making the cinematic equivalent of books of collected short stories. Collections of shorts have been done before but I don't remember it ever being done this effectively.

As a viewer, you have to live with lots of unresolved issues since +- 15 minutes provides only a snapshot of these women's lives. But Garcia rewards the thoughtful viewer as themes emerge from the collection of sketches.

Like in "Things You Can Tell..." the acting if first-class and scenarios authentic.

The cast alone makes this movie worthwhile. How does Garcia get such terrific talent? I suspect that his short story format allows actresses/ors to fit in a quick Garcia movie between their big paycheck films, allowing them to up their credibility with an art-house flick. But these aren't throw-away roles... they really give it their best! Of course, you're going to like some segments better than others. I found it odd that Garcia LED with what I felt was one of the weaker segments (The LA Jail). He ends with one of the best (Dakota Flanning and Glenn Close). My favorite was Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs in the grocery store. It touched me very deeply.

The final story (Flanning and Close) is one of the sweetest and lightest which bring up my biggest criticism of the film... Garcia could lighten up a little. A little more humor and a little more playfulness could really help his next film... and I hope he does make another in this same style.

My other criticism is of the cinematography which I don't find appealing... it tends to be overexposed and needlessly bleak at times. Admittedly, it does accurately convey both the emotions of the women and the feel of Southern California but I think it is overused. (Possibly he is trying to make the best of low budgets.) In summary.. this film is DEFINITELY worth watching as long as you are willing to accept it for what it is... a collection of snapshots rather than the more developed characters and story that traditional movies provide. If you are renting, I suggest that you also pick up a copy of "Things you can tell..." and have a mini Garcia film festival.

Nine Lives fmovies. I saw Nine Lives this evening at the Virginia Film Festival – both producers (Julie Lynn and Kelly Thomas) were also there, along with Sissy Spacek, Kathy Baker, and Rodrigo Garcia, for a short talk after the screening.

This is a gorgeous film. It's both strong and delicate, treating the interwoven nine lives of the title with uncompromising authenticity. Each portion is preceded by a woman's name, the name of the woman focused on in that section – and then we dive into what Garcia describes as "looking through the window into someone's house", the examination of nearly fifteen minutes of that life, each done in one take. Yes, just ONE take -- the camera follows and weaves about the characters as in a dance. The result is moving, powerful, luminous.

The nine lives are not so intertwined as to be confusing – instead, we occasionally recognize faces: "ah, that's the cop from before", "oh, she was the mom in the other story".

What a pleasure it was to watch a film in a huge, sold-out theater where the audience was so rapt that for many minutes at a time the only sound was the film's dialogue. And what dialogue! Garcia's touch is determined, yet infinitely tender. Each major character is treated with kindness and truth. From the teenage girl called "the heart of the house", to the pregnant woman who unexpectedly runs into her ex-husband, to the frightened, angry woman about to undergo surgery, all show us what they are, how they are underneath – while trying to camouflage themselves from others. They deal with loss, with anger, with connection (I was reminded of E. M. Forster: "Only connect"), and, ultimately, with acceptance.

Yes, all the stories involve strong feeling, but humans can be very funny – at times the whole audience broke up in laughter! There's not a bad, mediocre, or tired performance in this film, and that includes the smaller roles. If I had to pick one actor as most lambent, however, it would be Robin Wright Penn. She is nearly transparent with emotions fleeting, transitory, erupting and reappearing, as she struggles not to reveal herself.

Go see Nine Lives. It's a movie to savor and rejoice in. These days, that's pretty unusual . . . but Nine Lives holds hope for our journey toward possibility.

Columbian director and writer Rodrigo García (Things you can tell just by looking at her, multiple episodes of Six Feet Under, Carnivale, The Sopranos, Fathers and Sons, etc) does what few writer/directors are capable of: García observes the human condition, finds the stories that such observations suggests, fleshes out these ideas into vignettes, and then weaves them into a tapestry of a film that is simply breathtaking.

NINE LIVES is simply the reporting of nine women and their surrounding characters who are coping with an emotional crisis involving relationships with a parent, child, lover, husband, or sister and the manner in which each woman deals with keeping her life intact despite the trials of everyday living. Imagine walking down a street, as a flaneur, observing glimpses of a person and conversation that lasts only as long as the time you approach, pause and pass on by and you have an idea of the technique García uses. These little short stories are the stuff of life we all encounter: García pauses long enough to let them make an impact.

Part of the beauty of this film is the sterling cast which includes some of our finest actors - Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, K Callan, Glenn Close, Stephen Dillane, Dakota Fanning, Holly Hunter, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Ian McShane, Mary Kay Place, Aidan Quinn, Sissy Spacek, Robin Wright Penn - the list goes on. There is a sense of ensemble commitment to this film despite that only occasionally do the characters overlap. The writing is terse, understated, always saying just enough to arrest our attention before moving on, much the way life keeps passing. A very fine work, and one that reminds us that great movies from quiet stories come. Grady Harp

I just saw the movie and right now it feels like one of my top all time favorites. As in up there with Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and 400 Blows and La Dolce Vita. I don't know why ten fragments of stories should have that power. Maybe because the writing is genius? No pandering to conventional standards of entertainment, just a great author mining vein after vein of truth and freeing his brilliant actors to be intensely fearlessly human at every second. This is the movie that Crash wishes it was (and I thought Crash was awesome). No preaching. No "ideas." Just the human heart on display. Amazing that a woman lying in a hospital bed facing a mastectomy got the biggest laughs--because Kathy Baker, speaking Rodrigo Garcia's lines, so completely captured the frustration and helplessness that all of us have felt that all the audience could do was laugh in recognition. Go see this one.