Movie #13 Nine Lives

Movie #13 --
NINE LIVES
Date Viewed: March 12, 2006
CATEGORY: Drama – Vignettes
CAST: Robin Wright Penn, Sissy Spacek, Glenn Close, Aidan Quinn, Dakota Fanning, Holly Hunter and a host of other talented actors.
RATING: A
WHERE SEEN: Home
REASON FOR VIEWING: Ebert and Roeper Review
Netflix Synopsis: This series of intimate vignettes from writer-director Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her) peers into the private lives of nine women, each with a different destiny.

Comments: What a great, stunning, emotional movie! These nine vignettes, each about 12 minutes long, feature very different women from all walks of life, each of them who could be said is stuck in some kind of emotional rut – some more deep than others, some of which they have control of and some they don’t. We start out with Sandra in LA County Jail who is trying her best but whose emotions are right at the surface and a seemingly minor incident spells disaster for her. Then Diana played exquisitely by the fabulous Robin Wright Penn who runs into her old love, Damian, in the supermarket years after their relationship has ended; the one gesture by Damian just broke my heart. Other standouts include Sissy Spacek as the wife of a disabled man (Deadwood’s Ian McShane) who shows up in two of the vignettes and Amy Brenneman as he ex-wife of a man whose wife has just committed suicide. All the stories are so vivid, so intense that I am glad I saw it on DVD instead of in a theater as I found I was forced to take a break in the middle. There were several that moved me to tears. This is really great film making and absolutely highly recommended.