Nine Lives

Writer-Director Rodrigo Garcia new movie gives us short stories that show a small part in the lives of these strong, broken down women. Garcia's last effort was a similar one, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her was also a movie showing a slice of the lives of women, and I haven't seen that one yet, but I'll look for it now, because Nine Lives is powerful, tragic, and extremely well acted. We only get to see around twelve minutes of each story, but it is enough, at least for most of them, to let us know all we need to know about the characters' situations, and then, after their abrupt ending, is up to us to figure out what happened before and what will happen later. There's so much talent at work here, even from the lesser known actresses, and with the stories being so short, everybody is at the top of their game, and is just excellent to watch.

We start with Sandra (played by Elpidia Carrillo), an inmate doing some cleaning work waiting for a visit from her young daughter. Sandra is tough, but she's a troublemaker. She's been there for more than 4 months now, and this is not her first time in jail. Apparently there have been some problems between some inmates lately, and Sandra is probably involved, and so she's questioned about it by one of the guards (played by Miguel Sandoval). Then when she gets to see her daughter, through a glass window, she gets enraged when the phone doesn't work, and her daughter wont be able to come back for a month. The acting and the drama in this first story is so engaging, that it takes you right in and ready for what's to come.

Other story includes Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs as ex-lovers who were very much in love once, but something happened. They meet in a supermarket, haven't seen each other for 10 years maybe. They're both married, she's pregnant, but this encounter is troubling.
There's also Amy Brenneman as a woman going to her ex-husband's wife's funeral. She's shouldn't be there, and she knows it, but she wants to support him. He's played by William Fichtner, he's a deaf-mute, and they're both still in love with each other.
There's also Holly Hunter and Stephen Dillane as couple getting into a fight while visiting a friend couple. These friends happen to be the Jason Isaacs character from the Robin Wright-Penn short and his wife. Various characters that are central to a story appear as secondary ones in others.
In another story Kathy Baker plays Camille, a woman in a hospital bed about to get surgery to remove one of her breasts. Her very patient and loving husband (played by Joe Mantegna) is there, and she's being a total bitch towards him and the nurse, who is the central piece in one of the other stories. Camille's actions are understandable, she's nervous and frightened, and the nurse knows that.

As if there aren't enough big names already, Sissy Spacek is featured in two stories. In the first one Amanda Seyfried plays Samantha, a young girl who did not go to college to stay home and care for her father (played by Ian McShane) who is in a wheelchair. Spacek is Ruth, her mother and his wife. They have a very dysfunctional relationship, but Samantha understands and is there for them. And then Ruth's story with Aidan Quinn's Henry. They are checking into a motel. Is she cheating on her husband? Or does he know about and approves knowing that his condition doesn't allow him to give her what she needs? This could also be the first time this happens, maybe not.
Lisa Gay Hamilton is Holly, the nurse of the Kathy Baker story, and her short is one of the most troubling and moving. She's goes to the home she grew up in, where she was abused, she's infuriated, screaming and crying, her young sister is there, and Holly's waiting for her father to come to confront him. He's a character we've seen before.
In the final and most haunting story, Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning are Maggie and Maria, mother and daughter going to the cemetery to visit a family member's grave. They have a picnic in front of it, they play together, and they talk about Maggie's father. Glenn Close is amazing, and Dakota plays a regular little girl for once, and she's really good too.

I just found out Rodrigo Garcia is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's son, the Colombian Nobel Prize winning novelist, and that is just amazing. Rodrigo's work here is exceptional, in the screenplay and behind the camera. The stories are deeply touching and realistic, we care for these characters. And the way he filmed them is great, each one shot with a single camera filming non-stop around these women. The stories in Nine Lives continue, we don't know for sure how, but what happens during these sequences, for most of the characters, is life changing, and what we see is enough to affect us too.