Nine Days (2021)

Synopsis

In a darkened room, a man sits watching a bank of monitors. He’s beguiled by one in particular: a collage of a life in progress, from baby reaching out for a toy violin, to a teen practicing, to an adult preparing for an important concert. It takes a few moments, but we realize we’re seeing the world through her eyes. On the other monitors, other lives are playing out. The man watching is taking notes, recording their stories on VCR tapes, and filing everything away in cabinets: Amanda (the violinist), Fernando (a disabled man), Luiza (a bride to be), many more.

It takes patience, both for him and us. We aren’t spoonfed explanations. We must pay attention, listening and watching for clues about what is happening on the surface. And we must work even harder to appreciate what is happening under the surface.

Over time the details coalesce: The man’s name is Will (Winston Duke), who was once alive, now a soul assigned to watch over these living people. Amanda is special for him. He has watched her from birth, growing from child prodigy to brilliant violinist. And, on the eve of that concert, she deliberately runs her car into a concrete overpass. The screen goes dark. Will is crushed.

And now we learn Will’s most important task: He must interview unborn souls and pick one that is the best fit to assume the life that Amanda left behind. Assisting him is Kyo (Benedict Wong), who, unlike Will, is a soul who was never alive and thus does not have the benefit of human experience.

Over the course of the next nine days, Will challenges his candidates. He asks them what they would do in no-win scenarios. Set them tasks to reveal their attitudes. They are a study in contrasts: Kane (Bill Skarsgård), the pessimist; Emma (Zazie Beetz), the optimist; Mike (David Rysdahl), the fragile artist; Maria (Arianna Ortiz), the fearful loner; Alex (Tony Hale), the truculent manipulator. Who will you find yourself rooting for?

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Writer/Director Edson Oda’s allegory does not lean into expected cliches or outcomes. God will not appear in a shining light in the final frame. The Devil’s red eyes do not follow Will on his nighttime forays. Will is not a powerful guardian angel who can intervene in his subjects’ lives, but a self-loathing former human himself who must sit, powerless, as his subjects make their ways toward happy moments or profound grief.

Will is tortured and obsessed with understanding why Amanda chose to end her life. She was a soul he had chosen before and had followed proudly. What did he miss? How, with his next choice, could he avoid making the same “mistake” he made with Amanda? His doubt and frustration boils over one night as he criticizes the choices made by other interviewers: “I send flowers and other people send pigs to eat them.”

Winston Duke is marvelous as a mere former mortal who feels the weight of his profound responsibility and tries his best to make the “right” choice, all the while doubting his worthiness. You feel his sorrow. His final speech is breathtaking.

Benedict Wong is the perfect foil, challenging his colleague’s assessments of the candidates, trying to steer him toward optimism when pessimism seems the most prudent choice.

Among the souls contending for rebirth, the truly outstanding performance belongs to Zazie Beetz, the carefree Emma. Where others assume there are rules they might learn that will help them “win the game,” she refuses to play games. Beetz is comfortable and assured and convincing in her role as the soul who is truly unique among the lot.

Though Nine Days is a tale of the supernatural, it does not belong to that subgenre of faith-based drama. Director Oda has stripped the story bare of traditional trappings and, with the questions Will puts to his candidates, challenges you to consider and answer them yourself. As Will says many times, there are no right or wrong answers.

But there are choices. The most illuminating choice: When a candidate is deemed not a fit, as compensation they can identify a moment they would like to experience before their soul evaporates back to nothingness. What would you choose?