Starring Winston Duke, Benedict Wong and Zazie Beetz

Written & Directed by Edson Oda

Sony, in (very few) cinemas now.

A man interviews five unborn souls to determine which one can be given life on Earth.

When the 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri was designing the hellish schematics for his ‘Inferno’ he successfully mapped out the various levels of torment but missed the little closet tucked under the ninth circle, reserved for Sundance award-winning film makers who feel obliged to have at least one scene where the existentially challenged protagonists feel the need to go out into the rain, the wilderness, the snow, the rooftops, the salt flats and shout wordlessly at the heavens: ‘Arrrrggghhhh!!!!!’

Seriously, is there a class on this at American film schools?  Is it an entry requirement for said Sundance festival?  I was quite enjoying Nine Days, but they just had to do it.

It starts well. The set-up is exactly as above. If it sounds kind of familiar, it’s because Nine Days is basically a live action version of the Pixar animation, Soul, only very very very slow and with no jokes. The existential interviews take place in a lonely white-picket fenced beach house furnished with dusty analogue kit, filing cabinets, VHS players, cathode ray tube TVs, reel-to-reel tape recorders, and a lot of rather nice Tiffany table lamps. Will (Winston Duke) is assisted in his task by Benedict Wong, who does a lot to make this movie far more watchable than it deserves to be.

To be fair, the retro look is very satisfying, with notes of Terry Gilliam, Being John Malkovich and one of my favourite god-as-a-slob movies, the quirky 2015 Belgian existential comedy, Brand New Testament.

To be fair, the concept works despite the bad timing of Soul hitting our screens last year, not to mention its very obvious logical holes, but my goodness, at two hours it far outstays its welcome. There’s 60 minutes in this story – perhaps an episode of Black Mirror’s worth? – and that’s being generous.

I even forgave Nine Days the trite moral philosophising, which reminded me of those Jonathan Livingston Seagull greetings cards people used to send each other in the 1970s.  I guess it’s fair enough to ponder the rights and wrongs of human behaviour. Everyone has to do it at some point, although I got past most of the moral scruple-ising pondered in this award winning script round about 1976 when I used to go camping with my mates and, staring up at the stars, chemically assisted, contemplated the meaning of existence, thinking we were saying something profound.

Spoiler alert: We weren’t.

But Winston Duke carries it off with honesty and conviction, and this reviewer was happy to go along for the ride… until they started quoting Walt Whitman and, yes, shouting wordlessly at the void. At which point my toes curled and I got cramp.

To be fair again, there is one joke in the film, and it is quite amusing, although I had heard it before.

Verdict: There’s the germ of a good movie here, but ultimately it is suffocated by its own self importance and lack of narrative discipline. Worth catching as interesting curiosity, and I’ll certainly check out the next Edson Oda movie when it arrives, but ultimately Nine Days felt too much like nine days. It  tested my patience. 6/10

Martin Jameson