Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Louis Bujeau, Sabine Crossen, Jeremy Guetta
Starring: Aurélia Poirier, Pierre Azéma, Eloïse Le Baud, Sabine Crossen
Nine is the first feature from a French trio of directors - Louis Bujeau, Sabine Crossen and Jeremy Guetta, all of whom also star in their movie - working under the collective title "Puissance 9." There are nine characters in Nine, whose press release bills it as "the first film whose title isn't quite the same at the end." I'm not sure such a boast stands up to scrutiny, but Nine is certainly a very different movie by its finale than the one we initially believe we're watching.
After seemingly inheriting her family home in the French countryside, Mélanie (Aurélia Poirier) takes a trip with a group of her friends to enjoy one final weekend before she sells the property. Mélanie is unhappy to find her estranged mother Nicole (Crossen) waiting at the home. Despite Mélanie and her friends making it blatantly obvious (to the point of outright rudeness) that Nicole isn't welcome, she insists on staying put. A domineering figure, Nicole takes control of the group's plans, forcing them to play an elaborate board game of her making in which she asks intrusively personal questions about how well each of them really knows Mélanie.
It's an odd enough scenario, but there are even stranger elements, not least of which is the figure who appears have been confined in the trunk of Mélanie's car. When another stranger appears in the form of Paul (Pierre Azéma), who claims to have rented the house for the weekend, things begin to take a very weird turn.
To say any more would be to spoil the surprise at the heart of Nine's twisty narrative. If I'm honest, I guessed what was afoot here before I even watched the movie, thanks to the brief synopsis provided on Screamfest's listings page. I would suggest you go into Nine completely blind, but the film opens with a flash forward that provides a huge clue as to where the narrative is headed. I'm baffled as to why the filmmakers would make such a self-sabotaging choice.
Once you know the truth of Nine - whether through your own deductions or the film's reveal, which comes relatively early on - it becomes a matter of simply waiting for it to play out to its inevitable conclusion. It's a difficult narrative to engage with, as we're essentially just waiting for a penny to drop rather than becoming emotionally invested in any of the characters. A revelation regarding past events is so unsettling that it makes for a deeply unpleasant conclusion to the film.
Nine's big twist is far from novel - it was pulled off more successfully by a Hollywood movie in the 2000s - and you'll probably have a resigned feeling of "oh, that's it?" when it's revealed. Still, the film does its best to introduce some new elements to this trope, with some striking visuals reminiscent of the purposely retro FX of Twin Peaks: The Return. Poirier is very good as our harried heroine while Crossen is positively vampy as her wicked mother.
