Nine Lives - Palm Beach Post movie review

'Nine Lives': Just a tease of terrific stories

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Writer-director Rodrigo Garcia, son of novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, shows he has what it takes to be a feature filmmaker in his debut film Nine Lives, but so far he has only given us a truncated series of character sketches. They are intriguing, even engrossing, but as soon as they have drawn us into each new situation, they abruptly end in this nine-part exercise in frustration.

Magnolia Films

'Nine Lives'

C-

The verdict: Intriguing, but truncated character sketches, populated by an impressive cast.

Director: Rodrigo Garcia
Starring: Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Andrew Borba, Elpidia Carrillo, Glenn Close
Run time: 114 minutes
Release date: Oct. 14, 2005
Rating: R for language, brief sexual content and some disturbing images.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

Maybe not all, but most of these stories deserve to be expanded into full-length features of their own. The opening scene, an unexpected, awkward supermarket encounter between two former lovers (Robin Wright Penn, Jason Isaacs) has palpable tension and characters worth caring about.

The same goes for the tale of a young black woman (Lisa Gay Hamilton), so angry she vibrates with rage, on her return to the childhood home where her father once abused her. Or the urge of a deaf man (William Fichtner) to have sex with his ex-wife at the funeral of his current mate. All the way to the final vignette, the interplay of a mother (Glenn Close) and a daughter (Dakota Fanning) on a day's outing at a cemetery.

Occasionally characters from one story show up again in another, but trying to link the entire film thematically is an exercise in futility. Garcia does demonstrate his agility with a camera, because each 12- to 14-minute short film unfolds in a single, continuous Steadi-cam tracking shot. It is a gimmick which he manages not to make seem forced.

Garcia did attract an impressive cast for this anthology, including Holly Hunter, Sissy Spacek and Kathy Baker, to name a few more. They help pull us in and make us wish their stories did not conclude just as we were becoming involved. Nine Lives could be described as many things, but not satisfying.