Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2005


Nine Lives (2005 film)

Buy Nine Lives (2005 film) now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Nine Lives' is a 2005 American drama film written and directed by Rodrigo Garca. The screenplay, an example of hyperlink cinema, relates nine short, loosely intertwined tales with nine different women at their cores. Their themes include parent-child relationships, fractured love, adultery, illness, and death. Similar to Garca's previous work, 'Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her', it is a series of overlapping vignettes, each one running about the same length and told in a single, unbroken take, featuring an ensemble cast.

Plot



* Imprisoned Sandra (Elpidia Carrillo) has an emotional breakdown when the broken telephone in her cubicle prevents her from communicating with her daughter on visiting day.

* Diana (Robin Wright Penn) and Damian (Jason Isaacs), two former flames now married to others, unexpectedly have a poignant reunion in the aisle of the local supermarket.

* Holly (LisaGay Hamilton) returns home to confront her sexually abusive stepfather and dissolves into gun-waving hysteria.

* Feuding married couple Sonia (Holly Hunter) and Martin (Stephen Dillane) have an emotional meltdown while visiting their friends Lisa (Molly Parker) and Damian (Jason Isaacs) in their new apartment.

* Teenaged Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) is torn between her non-communicative parents Ruth (Sissy Spacek), and Larry (Ian McShane), each of whom questions her about everything the other one has to say.

* Divorce Lorna (Amy Brenneman) must cope with her ex-husband Andrew's (William Fichtner) sexual desire for her during his second wife's funeral.

* Ruth (Sissy Spacek), primary caretaker for her wheelchair-using husband, becomes increasingly guilt-ridden during a tryst with drunken widower Henry (Aidan Quinn) in a hotel.

* Camille (Kathy Baker) is facing breast cancer surgery and uses her waiting time to lash out at her quietly supportive husband Richard (Joe Mantegna).

* Maggie (Glenn Close) discusses life with her daughter Maria (Dakota Fanning) during a picnic in the cemetery and realizes how much she needs the little girl's loving comfort.

Cast



The Nine Women

*Elpidia Carrillo as Sandra

*Robin Wright Penn as Diana

*LisaGay Hamilton as Holly

*Holly Hunter as Sonia

*Amanda Seyfried as Samantha

*Amy Brenneman as Lorna

*Sissy Spacek as Ruth

*Kathy Baker as Camille

*Glenn Close as Maggie

Supporting players

* K Callan as Marisa

* Stephen Dillane as Martin

* Dakota Fanning as Maria

* William Fichtner as Andrew

* Jason Isaacs as Damian

* Joe Mantegna as Richard

* Ian McShane as Larry

* Molly Parker as Lisa

* Mary Kay Place as Alma Wyatt

* Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Vanessa

* Lawrence Pressman as Roman

* Aidan Quinn as Henry

* Miguel Sandoval as Ron

Release



The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005 and was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Golden Leopard for Best Film and the entire cast was awarded the Bronze Leopard for Best Actress, before going into limited release in the US in October. It opened on seven screens and earned $28,387 in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $478,830 in the US and $1,084,093 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $1,562,923.[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ninelives.htm BoxOfficeMojo.com]

Reception



Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported the score of 75% from 85 critics, with an average rating of 6.89/10. The critical consensus reads, "Nine Lives is bolstered by a strong cast and features many insightful glimpses into the lives of women". Metacritic gave score a film of 80 based on 25 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Stephen Holden of 'The New York Times' described it as "a film that may be the closest movies have come to the cinematic equivalent of a collection of Chekhov short stories. The film's reward for intense concentration is a feeling of deep empathy and connection. For once, you don't harbor the uneasy suspicion of having been emotionally manipulated ... Mr. Garca has made a film that could be described as radically realistic ... In its subtle, understated performances, the actors vanish into characters who behave like ordinary people observed through one-way glass."[https://movies.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/movies/14nine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 'New York Times', October 14, 2005]

Roger Ebert of the 'Chicago Sun-Times' said, "Rodrigo Garcia ... the son of the novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez ... has the same love for his characters, and although his stories are all (except for one) realistic, he shares his father's appreciation for the ways lives interweave and we touch each other even if we are strangers. A movie like this, with the appearance of new characters and situations, focuses us; we watch more intently, because it is important what happens."[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051027/REVIEWS/510270304/1023 'Chicago Sun-Times', October 28, 2005]

Ruthe Stein of the 'San Francisco Chronicle' called the film "an emotionally satisfying example of a genre whose sketchiness can be off-putting" and added, "Garca knows how to create juicy roles for actresses, and they return the favor with performances of such concentrated intensity that you cannot take your eyes off them."[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/28/DDG17FEH3I1.DTL 'San Francisco Chronicle', October 28, 2005]

Michael Wilmington of the 'Chicago Tribune' awarded the film four out of five stars, describing it as "one of the most interesting and original American films out right now" and "a disturbingly frank look at people and relationships in contemporary Los Angeles and a thrilling dramatic showcase for a brilliant cast." He added, "[The] stories might seem the stuff of soap opera, but Garcia and his superb cast turn most of them into dramatic gold. The peculiar overall structure makes them distinctive as well, the way these little semi-Chekhovian, semi-Andre Dubus pieces play out against each other."[http://chicago.metromix.com/movies/review/movie-review-nine-lives/160246/content 'Chicago Tribune', August 24, 2007]

Kevin Thomas of the 'Los Angeles Times' called it "that rare episode film that actually accrues a cumulative power and doesn't merely proceed from one segment to the next. By the time it's over it has become a testament to the inner resilience of women in coping with a critical moment in their lives ... Each segment seems perfectly shaped and timed, not lasting a second too long yet always of sufficient length to be satisfying in itself. Garca's large ensemble cast is impeccable, and he and his actors have created a film as memorable as it is subtle ... 'Nine Lives' is a sophisticated, elegant-looking film shot in distinctive, wide-ranging L.A. locales, but its real terrain is the human heart, explored with compassion and respect."[http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-nine14oct14,0,1327985.story 'Los Angeles Times', October 14, 2005]

Accolades



*Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama (Robin Wright Penn, nominee)

*Satellite Award for Best Original Screenplay (nominee)

*ALMA Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Elpidia Carrillo, 'winner')

*ALMA Award for Director of a Motion Picture (nominee)

*National Board of Review Award for Excellence In Filmmaking ('winner')

*Independent Spirit Award for Best Director (nominee)

*Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay (nominee)

*Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress (Robin Wright Penn, nominee)

*Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Ensemble Cast (nominee)

The film was also nominated for the William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie.

See also



* List of American films of 2005

References




Buy Nine Lives (2005 film) now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 2005



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1110872249.