Three Ryan Reynolds for the price of one? Definitely a bargain... maybe. Aptly described by writer/director John August as “a tiny movie that’s occasionally ambitious”, The Nines splits its 99-minute running time into three half-hour long segments before revealing them to be parallel splinters of the same existential narrative. Reynolds plays different roles in each (an actor under house arrest, a writer battling to get a pilot made and a father stranded in the woods), though their similar initials and the recurring presences of Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy suggest nothing is as it seems. Sadly, August has no great rabbit up his sleeve, content to flirt with spirituality, numerology and multiverse philosophy en route to his WTF ending. The extras make it worth the journey, though – not least August’s quirky short film God, which sees McCarthy on a literal hotline to the Man Upstairs.
