Nine Days (2021)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Soul Custody

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This beautiful, minimalist existential fantasy gets its power not only from its great cast, but also its refusal to answer questions or explain things; it's content to revel in mystery of being human.

In a house seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Will (Winston Duke) watches a bank of television sets, monitoring the progress of a woman named Amanda, as well as her tragedy. Soon Will has several visitors — Mike (David Rysdahl), Alexander (Tony Hale), Kane (Bill Skarsgård), Maria (Arianna Ortiz), Anne (Perry Smith), and then later, Emma (Zazie Beetz) — among them. We learn that they are unborn souls, and that Will has been given the task of choosing which among them will get the chance to be born.

Another unborn soul, Kyo (Benedict Wong), hangs around and helps Will out. As candidates are eliminated, Will does his best to create "memories" for them that they can hang onto. But as Will gets down to the final two candidates, it becomes clear that his obsession with Amanda is clouding his judgment. Can he make the correct choice?

Written and directed by Edson Oda (a feature debut), Nine Days begins with its simple, powerful setting, a modest house that seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Characters occasionally walk away from the house, and the land looks like it stretches on forever. It feels like an isolated way station, maybe in the center of the universe.

The character of Will (what better name for someone in charge of choosing life?) never lets on why he asks the questions he asks, and is forever reiterating that there are no "wrong" answers. Yet, rather than being frustrating, it's constantly intriguing. The characters, like us, are forever trying to figure out the situation, and what, exactly to say or do, but there's no right answer. We like them all, and they all seem like good candidates, so Will's choices, again, are arbitrary.

The only thing that's sure in Nine Days is that Will feels guilt over the fate of his pick Amanda, and that guilt pushes up against everything else in the movie. When he makes his eventual realization — followed by an exuberant recitation of Walt Whitman — it has a visceral impact. A weight has lifted, and life feels full of possibility.