Up until this point and perhaps even now, Reynolds is best known as a pretty boy who is quite good at delivering a one liner. Here August gives him three very different roles and he rises to the challenge and pulls off the performance of his career. The second section in particular reveals depths to the actor that nobody thought possible.
Due to the films relative underperformance financially, Reynolds has never taken this level of risk since and Hollywood keeps shoving him into the lead of underdeveloped blockbusters every year. The Nines is an expertly crafted spiritual journey into mystery that will confound and astound. Although working with a very low-budget, the ending with its low-key special effects and a pretty huge pay off somehow works wonderfully and will bring a tear to the eye of even the biggest sceptic.
The story delves into the nature of creation, imagination and ownership and asks some pretty huge questions about the responsibility of the creator not just to his creations but also to those that love and care for them. Essentially The Nines boils down to a wonderful message about the nature of addiction and finding your higher self, something they teach you in twelve step programs all the time.
Sadly The Nines happened to come out in that transition period late last decade between independent features routinely being snapped up by studios and the rise of video on demand. It got a very low-key release despite the presence of Reynolds and McCarthy who was four years off Bridesmaids still.
The Nines is so personal and so low key that it is simply very difficult to market. All three stories are told with the same actors. When I first heard about The Nines, everyone was raving about how original it was and how it was like nothing they have ever seen before. So obviously it peeked my interest. After finally watching the film, I can see where it gets it's praise, but don't fully understand why it's getting so much of it. Yes, The Nines is original and keeps you guessing until the very end, but the pay off isn't as good as the rest of the film.
The Nines is another impressive entry to his already good resume. It seems that August was confident enough to tackle this big project. I applaud him ambitions. He didn't fail by any means, but he didn't blow me away either. It is always a love hate relationship when the writer is the director. When it works, you get Pulp Fiction, when it doesn't you get Blade Trinity.
When the writer is the director, he knows exactly what he wants, he knows the characters inside out and how to bring everything together. The Nines doesn't seem to fall into either category, it seems to sit on the fence. Ryan Reynolds proves again that he has more range then people give him credit for.
He might have painted himself into a corner with Van Wilder and Waiting, but he seems to be slowly breaking free of it. He showed range at the very end of Smoking Aces and in the recent rom com Definitely Maybe.
With The Nines he again proves why he is underestimated and will bring greater things in the future. Reynolds plays the lead in all three shorts. We see him as a crack addicted actor, gay writer and family man video game designer. While he doesn't blow you away with his performance, he does manage to capture you and bring you along for the ride from start to finish.
Hope Davis appears here in a supporting role, again playing three different characters in all three shorts. She manages to get so much across the screen by doing so little. A look here or move there and you know exactly what she is thinking.
Melissa McCarthy plays herself in one segment, I think she had the hardest job. She has to be bubbly, scared, mean and informative. The three segments are all shot differently. The first segment, titled The Prisoner, showcases bright reds and yellows and was shot on 16mm.
The second segment, titles reality television is shot on video. The entire segment plays out like a reality TV show as we follow Gavin reynolds and his troubles in trying to get his pilot on air.
The third and final segment, titled Knowing, is darker and shot on 35mm. The third segment has the same title as the pilot that Gavin in the second segment is writing. Even the same events take place. Without giving too much away, all three segment interconnect with each other. But not exactly in a way you want or think. If you are confused after watching the film, join the club.
I knew what happened and sort of got some things, but had to read up on it to see what others thought to finally connect the dots. The films does a very good job of teasing the viewer with bits of information and bringing them along asking questions left right and centre. As the film concludes you sit there wondering if you are satisfied or not. I still do not know really. I like the idea behind the film and the presentation was nice, but the way they dragged us along seemed like it would amount to something bigger, something deeper, something more then what we are ultimately given.
The film doesn't answer everything and it doesn't need to. It's a film that leaves it's answers up to the viewer, to make whatever assumptions they want. But even this isn't satisfying enough. I guess because all the hype I head prior, I expected more. If you go into it not knowing anything about it, you will be pleasantly surprised.
The film is divided in to three acts: "The Prisoner" tells of a troubled actor, Gary, under house arrest living in another person's house because he burned down his own. While living in the house he is befriended by both a P. Over the course of his house arrest, Gary becomes convinced that he is being haunted by the number nine. The house he lives in is the house Gary later stays in.
During the process of post production and the 'upfronts', a television executive, Susan, pushes for Gary to ditch the unconventional lead actress of his project, Melissa. Gabriel leaves his wife and daughter with the stranded vehicle and meets up with Sierra, a mysterious woman. It's not a film that you'll forget after the credits start rolling. Now that you get the point, it's time to talk about the movie.
Even so, it's hard to describe this movie in words. When you ask people if this movie is good or not, they'll either like it or not, but it's hard to explain their reason and it's hard to explain why I love this. The performance by the three main characters from the three stories, Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, and Hope Davis, were all fantastic, having themselves to change their personality so much.
It's pretty amazing. But of course, the movie will arise more questions than answering them. It's like "Donnie Darko," per se. This should be a cult hit, even though it isn't right now. This is a really weird film and it's hard to explain anything, as you can tell. All I can say is watch it because the way the stories are told, the thought put into all of this, and the strong performances are already some reasons to watch it.
This one can be safely filed under young adult metaphysical romp, nestled somewhere in between The Fountain and Donnie Darko in both quality and execution. A movie that manages to convey the former's tri-narrative transcendence much smoother and offer far more head-shaking, teenage-cultifying rewatchability then the latter, still only to find that in the end, Nines does not even add up to eights or sevens.
As fun as this space bending, Lynchian-lyte, 99 minute long film tends to be at times, John August's ambitions, both stylistically and plot-wise, outweigh his abilities. Even if viewers feel gypped for investing too much into the deflating concept, it was still an impressive contemporary meditation into the nature of thought, albeit in an often laughably entertaining way.
A regular reader of John August's blog I've been expecting to watch The Nines for quite a long time, unfortunately my long long wait was not rewarded for I think the movie doesn't work. The opening credits are great, they put me in a certain mood that made me eager for the show to begin. Alas, first reel contact fails as there is not a narrative flow that would get me in the picture. This doesn't work. For one Ryan Reynolds doesn't do particularly odd things picking up stuff then going to burn it while the camera movements are odd.
In short, John August's skills as a screenwriter are at odds with his first major directorial effort. That's only first reel contact, I think you'd agree there are no movies that will pick up after a poor first reel contact maybe there are but I can't remember those, which makes them non-existent either. The biggest flaw initiated during the first scene is the understated narrative with a visual-style that forgets from time to time to be low-key, it doesn't add up to an ambiance, an engaging narrative What I enjoyed the most - even if I barely had one foot in the movie - were the female characters.
Melissa McCarthy and Hope Davis are wonderful. I did prefer them in the more buoyant first parts of the movie, still they were very good in the pathos-ified deli-mellow Shyamalan closing part.
This also means I found Ryan Reynolds bland in comparison but I acknowledge his part lacked definition. To me this stands out eventually as the biggest flaw in The Nines: he is a godlike hero, which makes him thoroughly un-humane.
On the other hand The Nines could have been a great framework for David Lynch. I love Lost Highway, the narrative is understated, you're hardly ever sure about the story but you're little by little straightened into the mindset of the main character. Obviously nobody expects a first-time director to come close to that kind of directorial brilliance, so John August directing his three-fold story in a supernatural atmosphere and a metaphysical background, that is certainly much more than he can chew.
How telling The best scene I can remember from the DVD was left on the editing floor. I understand it would have been odd for the character to show up like this in the final cut, but that "hetero-flexible" joke is really very good!
I suppose not many people here know anything about the video game called The Sim? Cause if you do, you will know exactly where this movie came from. In fact this movie is not very complicated at all; it got a brilliant idea which has been transform into a very decent screenplay. It was not very good cinematic. Fine if you want to watch it one time, for it got different than most movie story, but what does it suppose to make its audience feel. I felt nothing. John August has written some very decent and one utterly brilliant screenplay so I wanted to check him out with his first feature film.
And he did a pretty decent job, in fact really good for first timer, with good additional sound effect. As I suppose people are here for Ryan, and like most serious movie that he was in, he did a pretty good job being himself.
So at the end this proves that John August can direct a film to the certain extent. Nice this guy is improving. But this movie does nothing for me, it was just plain and flat and no purpose. There should be more something than that and more character involvement. This is like a brief intro of The Sim which I suspect it got its inspiration from, because it was too much similarity and one character is even a game designer. Reason not to: Pointless.
Rating: 5. Loved this movie even though it's confusing. I'd watch that show his character created in the movie-Knowing-I liked that combination of him and Melissa McCarthy. Ryan Reynolds just gets it. His acting is always on point. It's interesting that you some people thought this got worse as it got along, because it was the absolute opposite for me.
I thought the first part was a little dull but I was hooked in by the end of it and I only got more and more curious as the film went on. This was helped by a superb performance from Ryan Reynolds, who crafted three individual characters who all felt genuine and unique, while also having them be believable as one primal being. The film as a whole was wildly entertaining and contained some very intriguing messages about identity, obsession, power and spirituality.
The connections through the stories craft a wonderful puzzle, constantly having you wonder what's actually going on and what it all means. One of the more surprising things after seeing the film, for me, was that people seem to be so confused by it. Again, going the opposite way, I found the film to be a great puzzle but the "what it all means" scene was actually too laid out. I think the whole exposition scene giving us all the answers really spoon-fed the audience and that the film would have benefited more by not giving us the answers so plainly.
I've seen a decent amount of people complaining about how confusing it all is, but one of my few complaints is how plainly and easily it was explained in the end. Because for the most part it was a unique, intelligent and very mind-bending puzzle. This is a must watch for the fans of David Lynch. There are enough enigmas within enigmas to reel your mind. It starts with a troubled actor, played with Ryan Reynolds being sentenced to house arrest.
There are two other characters. One is Melissa, his publicist. The second is Hope Davis, his sexy neighbor. He slowly begins to realize that something is wrong. The segment ends on a mysterious note. The last segment has him playing a video game designer. Her size and gender would have seemingly doomed her to a career full of sassy supporting roles, because we live in a society and film world that is already screamingly sexist but even more unforgivably cruel to women who do not fit our narrow and often sadistic conception of beauty.
Yet McCarthy became a huge movie star all the same for reasons that are apparent here, even if her nuanced, deft, and diverse performances are a far cry from the ribald slapstick that would make her famous.
She pretty much runs through the entire spectrum of human emotions in a single film. If nothing else, it indelibly establishes that this is most assuredly not your typical Ryan Reynolds movie. It establishes The Nines as an edgy, gonzo show-business satire; a semi-musical; a romantic comedy; a metaphysical drama; and a Pirandello-style exercise in blurring reality and fiction, where the characters seem to understand, if only intuitively, that they are mere players in a story someone else is telling.
August, a screenwriter used to serving the vision of others, revels in the intoxicating freedom of having complete control. It begins at a manic, kinetic clip, with a dizzying flurry of misbehavior and clever, expertly delivered banter, particularly thanks to McCarthy, who displays a gift for the snappy, machine-gun dialogue of a screwball heroine and a surprisingly potent chemistry with Reynolds.
It depicts writers as infinitely powerful beings with the ability to create dazzling new worlds, people, and conflicts out of thin air but who are also at the mercy of executives and audiences and producers and directors and script-doctors. August certainly knows all about the power and powerlessness of writers firsthand. I should probably reiterate here that this is played largely straight. No matter how insane, surreal, trippy, and absurd The Nines gets, it is fundamentally sincere.
It is a film of ideas and imagination that is self-indulgent in the best possible sense. It remains to be seen whether playing yet another superhero in Deadpool will conclusively make Reynolds a mega-star, but The Nines proved, almost a decade ago, that he was absolutely brilliant at playing someone — or something — mysterious, unknowable yet unmistakably superhuman.
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