Nine Lives (2005)

I was eager to like this experimental film written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (son of the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez), but in the end was disappointed. Garcia tells the stories of nine women, each one as a separate and independent 10–12 minute snap shot. Except for pain and dysfunctions of all sorts that relate directly to the men in their lives, the nine stories are unrelated. We encounter teenage and elderly women, blue collar and professionals, black, Hispanic and white. Diana is divorced from her husband but they should have stayed together. Sonia is badly married and should divorce. Holly confronts her abusive step-father and maybe commits suicide. Samantha referees between her distant parents. Ruth considers an affair, Camillie confronts breast cancer surgery, and as an inmate Sandra is separated from her daughter. The artistic signature of this film is that Garcia shoots each of the nine vignettes in a single, uninterrupted 10–12 minute shot with a hand-held camera, and that the crises these women face remain unresolved.