AFI FEST film review: 'Nine Days'
The soulful, evocative and striking fantastical drama 'Nine Days' (screening during AFI FEST 2020) is a truly breathtaking and inventive stroke of cinematic poetry.
In short: Reclusive Will (Winston Duke) spends his days in a remote outpost watching people live their lives when one of his subjects suddenly dies. A number of 'candidates' soon arrive at his home -- they are unborn human souls vying for a chance to be born. Zazie Beetz, Bill Skarsgård, Tony Hale and Benedict Wong also star.
In some respect, 'Nine Days' is 'Defending Your Life' (one of the great films of the 20th century) turned on its head. Whereas 'Defending' judged souls on how they lived their lives, this film judges souls on the merit of who they elementary are before they live a single moment of life. As wild and creative as the basic premise is, writer-director Edson Oda’s script keeps everything simple: only one candidate will get to be born, the rest will simply cease to exist. And it's Will who is charged with making this colossal choice.
Yet beyond the overarching selection of one sole candidate, this film is most powerful as it marinates in the ephemeral. 'Nine Days' finds poetic bliss in the infinitesimal daily routines of life. Will asks the candidates how they would respond to hyperbolic situations, but the characters spend more time watching the mundane moments of life. It's these commonplace, familiar and fleeting slices of daily life that reveal this script's deep love for life.
As Will presents hypothetical scenarios at the candidates, 'Nine Days' forces the characters and the audience to ponder larger life choices, while reveling in the joy, pain, significance and irrelevance of quiet, everyday moments. A dumber version of this film would have merely been content in throwing 'what if' scenarios out, and just make some cynical statements on the selfish nature of man. But the very questions themselves that Will asks of his candidates reveal his perspective of humanity and life. And as distant and aloof as Will may seem, his depressive state is the broken heart of 'Nine Days.'
Duke's quietly powerful performance is an absolute revelation. He carries himself with a deeply-rooted, spiritual exhaustion. He is a melancholic, duty-bound man burdened with the responsibility of choice and tormented by his choices. Will exists totally outside everything and everyone else around him. His best friend is a man who has never been alive, and the candidates are souls whose existence is measured in hours and days - as they vie for the chance at life. If 'Nine Days' is structured by its fantastical, existential notions, then Duke is its weary soul.
There's a helplessness Will embodies that resonates with any parent: dealing with preparing someone for the world. Will can only select which soul moves onto life, then he's totally powerless - he can only watch from an impossible distance. Their successes make him beam with pride, their pain and suffering slowly erodes his optimism for the world. Anyone raising a child, trying to prepare them to survive on their own, has some inclination of Will's impotence.
Final verdict: This wildly creative, delicate and life-affirming film is a celebration and rumination of the small, easily overlooked mundanities of daily life.
Score: 4.5/5
'Nine Days' screens at AFI FEST and is scheduled for release on Jan. 22, 2021. This fantasy drama is rated R for language and has a runtime of 124 minutes.
