Day 83 -- The Nines

Released: August 31st, 2007

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis
  
Writer/Director: John August

Description: A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Films that don't reveal what they are truly about for two/thirds of the movie can either be frustrating or brilliant. M. Night Shyamalan knows both sides of this, with "Six Sense" as the latter and "The Happening" as the former (plants, really?!). No matter how good you set-up the twist, the reveal is all that matters.

"The Nines" has a story that clear and convoluted at the same time. Throughout the films three parts, you get snippets of information about the truth about the world you are watching. The first part is all about an actor having a mental breakdown and slowly begins to realize that he might be in a "Truman Show"-esque situation; Part two is all about a screenwriter who is trying to create a new TV show, and he is also the subject of a reality show. Then, at the end of this section, we are lead to believe that he is in the most boring video game ever. Finally, the third part he plays a video game creator who gets lost in the wood, but by the end of this segment the audience and the character find out that "G" (Reynolds) is a god (get it "G").

The reveal is so clunky that I felt the need to say out loud to no one in particular, 'this is stupid.' The idea of the story is fantastic and on par with inception, but instead of leaving us with just one big question, "The Nines" leaves its audience with many small questions, which makes the ending confusing. Don't misconstrue this as a statement that everything should be spelled out for the audience, but rather, I'm campaigning for writers to know what questions to leave hanging and what ones to answer. You can answer questions and be mysterious, but if you leave too many loose strings, you undermine the entire first two acts of the film.

There are many ways to interpret the story of "The Nines". One is to take it at face value as a film about a god-like being that got too involved in the world he created, or you can take it like I did, as a metaphor for screenwriting. 

Before you roll your eyes, think about it, "G" can change the world with a single thought, and he says that the final world is his 90th, which can be equivalent to a writer's final draft. The two other examples that stick out to me is when "G" mentions to "M" (McCarthy) that the worst scenario, if he stops being involved, is the fiery destruction of the world, which is a reference to what could happen once a screenwriter hands his script over to a director. Finally, the line "S" (Davis) says during his "intervention"spoke to me as a writer, she says, 'If you stay, you'll keep changing the pine cones,' which refers to revision. The process of revision is a hard one because you start agonizing over the most minute details of your script or your world, or as she said, 'the pine cones'.

The performances were uneven. Reynolds only stood out in the middle section, McCarthy was great in the opening scenes, and Davis, and it may just be me, was painful to watch. The inconsistency is the byproduct of having actors play three completely different characters in the course of a 99-minute movie. It's obvious that none of the actors ever got comfortable in their role, and McCarthy especially had a hard time playing herself in the "Reality Television" segment. With all of the different intersecting moments and convolution in the story, the film needed about another half-hour to properly build the characters and clarify the story.

"The Nines" is an interesting idea that was just rushed to fit its run-time. John August did a really good job setting three different tones in each section so that the audience could understand that these were different world. Despite all of the good work he did, his failure to properly pace the reveal is the film's undoing.

Rating: 5/10 -- Inconsistent performances and uneven storytelling mar an otherwise solid film. Reynolds and McCarthy are good, but again, Davis pulls the quality of the film down.

Day 69 -- Chaos Theory

Released: April 11th, 2008
   
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer, Stuart Townsend, Sarah Chalke, Elizabeth Harnois
 
Writer/Director: Daniel Taplitz/Marcos Siega

Description: The story of an obsessively organized efficiency expert whose life unravels in unexpected ways when fate forces him to explore the serendipitous nature of love and forgiveness.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

No matter how you try to dress it up, a rom-com is still a rom-com. You can give it an interesting twist, or an unlikely story or just your standard "chick-flick" (god, I hate using that term) fare. They can be dark, light, or sappy, but they will always be a rom-com.

"Chaos Theory" leaned more toward the dark side of the genre. The story was a bit more depressing than normal romantic comedies. You're basic love triangle is here, but it's not your typical triangle because there's no vieing for the woman's attention in the story. Even the few moments where it comes up, it is immediately dismissed. No, this triangle involves who's the biological father of the 7-year-old girl, and at no point does this present a serious conflict.

Corporate speaker, Frank Allen (Reynolds), is meticulous in everything he does; he makes list and begins each day with a wish. One morning, his wife, Susan (Mortimer) decides to help him by changing the time on the kitchen clock to give him more time, but she mistakenly sets it forward which makes him late. This moment sparks a downturn in Frank's life, and he realizes that everything he has done in his life has not prepared him for the chaos that is about to come.

The funny set pieces are all there: A women picks up the phone in his hotel room when his wife calls, a hospital mistakes him for the father of an abandoned baby, and no matter what he does, no one believes him. But the twist of the film occurs right after this and it's was very well done. Frank is pressured to take a DNA test to prove that he is not the father of the stranger's baby, but finds out that he is sterile and is not the father of any baby, including his daughter, Jessica. This is when the movie goes into self discovery/destruction section of the narrative.

Rom-coms depend heavily on their writing, and "Chaos Theory" suffers from a mediocre script. One of the advantages of having the subtitles on is that you get to read the words and see how generic the lines are. This movie is greatly enhanced by its actors, and their performances, than it was by how compelling the words were on the page. In a genre that relies so much on it's story, a weak script can be the death of the film.

Reynolds plays his familiar character, Ryan Reynolds. If you blindfolded me and made me listen to a generic, non-catch phrase line from any of his movies, I don't know if I'd be able to tell you what character he's portraying. Don't get me wrong, he a good actor, but he has a tendency to use the same expressions and vocal changes in every movie.

The more I watch Emily Mortimer, the higher she moves up my favorite actresses list. She is effortless in every role, and makes me care about her character, which is exactly what a performer needs to do. She's also one of those women that becomes prettier the longer she is on screen. She has a very natural beauty that tricks your brain into thinking she's real and not a character being portrayed by an actress. Underrated might by too nice of a way to describe how overlooked she is in Hollywood.

"Chaos Theory" is a rom-com that tries so hard to not be a rom-com, but becomes the most rom-comiest, rom-com I've seen in this project. It tries to be dark with the paternity storyline, but they take the conflict out of it by making conception occur before Frank and Susan were together. There's only one dramatic fight between opposite sexes in the movie, and it's the most white washed thing in the film. I wouldn't be surprised if the movie was noted to death by producers who couldn't agree on what direction the film should take.

Rating: 5/10 -- Average at best, but worth viewing if you are a fan of Reynolds, Mortimer, or you are female. Best part of the movie for me was the surprise cameo from one of my underrated hotties, Elizabeth Harnois, who played the couple's grown-up daughter.