Nine Days Reviews (original) (raw)

Summary Will (Winston Duke) spends his days in a remote outpost watching the live Point of View (POV) on TV's of people going about their lives, until one subject perishes, leaving a vacancy for a new life on earth. Soon, several candidates — unborn souls — arrive at Will's to undergo tests determining their fitness, facing oblivion when they ar...

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Nine Days is the sort of original cinematic art that, these days, is few and far between.

Edson Oda’s script is incredible. It asks so many philosophical questions without being preachy or pedantic. It successfully reminds us how precious all of our lives are, which is no small feat.

This beautiful and devastating film will change how you look at life. A must watch.

A movie this well-crafted, thoughtful, and sad comes along once in a while. Add superb acting and luminous cinematography and you have a film you'll want to share with the friends you love the most, and no doubt see again with more friends and your favorite lovers. If it doesn't make you cry you're pretty tough.

Nine Days is, in its subdued way, a profound and powerful commentary on life.

Nine Days is slow going at first—it sometimes feels as if the title is a reference to its running time—but eventually this pensive, existential thought experiment blossoms into something more cinematic.

For all the film's intellectual pretensions, both good and bad, Duke's great gravitas and Beetz' spontaneity lift the film partway out of its quasi-spiritual morass; they provide a hint of the real, of a beating heart, even if the drama itself exists in a parched desert realm devoid of actual life.

Although arguably a smidge too ponderous and self-serious for its own good, Nine Days still represents a reasonably promising debut for its writer-director Edson Oda.

When a movie doesn’t hold up to introspection as a whole, it’s best to examine its parts. And some of those are admirable.

I am not sure I ever gave a movie a "10" before. But when a movie leaves you wanting more, inspired to write a creative story such as this, and go search who Edson Oda is and what else he has done, then you got to give the props where due. I would not want to give anything away because the unraveling of this movie package is what makes this movie so special. The stars, Winston Duke and Zazie Beetz have been bit actors up to now, and when they were given the baton to run, they took off like they had a a jet fuel pack strapped to their backs. I hope the screenplay, the director and these actors get Oscar consideration. Please see this in any format you can, because it is so worth seeing.

Nine Days has quite an ambitious concept. It's actually really ambitious. Yet its director didn't do much with it beyond the clear philosophical and to some extent religious implications. Its own introspection provokes questions that will inevitably go unanswered because the script's approach is clearly designed to function within the confines of what this story portrays. That clearly puts a limit to what it can do and where else it could go, for the simple reason that its theme inevitably falls because of that. I give credit to this film for what it explores and because it does it better than I thought it would. But there's also a lot that remains undeveloped here.

For me it was boring. I know it sends a message and is more philosophical and wants to express it in a different way and while I understood the idea it tries to bring, I found it boring for me. Just not my taste - if you like such movies, then maybe it would be for you, not for me though

Winston Duke’s character is a sort of cross between the stork and a guardian angel. He sits in a craftsman house in the desert, watching the people he “birthed” on old TVs, while recording momentous events on VHS (the retro tech is never explained). When one of his charges dies unexpectedly, 5 new entities (unborn souls?) must interview to become a human. Duke heads a cast of actors who stretch their dramatic talents with involving performances, including Tony Hale, Zazie Beetz and Bill Skarsgård. This is one of those tedious, pretentious experiments that may appeal to people who like esoteric, poetic musings on life. For the rest of us, the pace is deadly and there isn’t really a story, just a string of mind games disguised as tests (and dramatic opportunities for the actors). First time writer/director Edson Oda presents a unique vision and a promising point of view, but not one that will appeal to many mainstream moviegoers.

good concept but my god it was boring and dull and dragged for way too long than it should be, I couldn't keep watching as I was falling asleep so I just skipped to the end to see what happened and Im glad I did don't waste your time

Production Company 30WEST, Baked Studios, Juniper Productions, MACRO, Mandalay Pictures, Mansa Productions, Nowhere, Oak Street Pictures, The Space Program

Release Date Jul 30, 2021

Duration 2 h 4 m

Rating R

Tagline Life Begins at the End

Sunset Film Circle Awards

Chicago Indie Critics Awards (CIC)

Denver Film Festival

• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations