Center for the literary arts in New York State
FILM SCREENING
"Nine Lives"
7 p.m. Friday, September 1, 2023
Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus, Albany NY 12203
Featuring an all-star ensemble cast including Glenn Close, Sissy Spacek, Holly Hunter, Dakota Fanning, and Robin Wright Penn,
"Nine Lives" is an award-winning, moving exploration of the individual experiences of nine everyday women as told through nine single unbroken takes. As characters from one story reappear in supporting roles in others, director Rodrigo Garcia interweaves a grand tapestry of storytelling as he reveals nine unique women who meet the travails and disappointments of life with a resilience that is at once heartening and heartbreaking.
From the critics
"...a film that may be the closest movies have come to the cinematic equivalent of a collection of Chekhov short stories. The film's reward for intense concentration is a feeling of deep empathy and connection. For once, you don't harbor the uneasy suspicion of having been emotionally manipulated ... Mr. García has made a film that could be described as radically realistic ... In its subtle, understated performances, the actors vanish into characters who behave like ordinary people observed through one-way glass." Stephen Holden of The New York Times
"Rodrigo Garcia ... the son of the novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez... has the same love for his characters, and although his stories are all (except for one) realistic, he shares his father's appreciation for the ways lives interweave and we touch each other even if we are strangers. A movie like this, with the appearance of new characters and situations, focuses us; we watch more intently, because it is important what happens." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times
"...an emotionally satisfying example of a genre whose sketchiness can be off-putting" and added, "García knows how to create juicy roles for actresses, and they return the favor with performances of such concentrated intensity that you cannot take your eyes off them." Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle
"...one of the most interesting and original American films out right now" and "a disturbingly frank look at people and relationships in contemporary Los Angeles and a thrilling dramatic showcase for a brilliant cast. [The] stories might seem the stuff of soap opera, but Garcia and his superb cast turn most of them into dramatic gold. The peculiar overall structure makes them distinctive as well, the way these little semi-Chekhovian, semi-Andres Dubus pieces play out against each other." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
"... that rare episode film that actually accrues a cumulative power and doesn't merely proceed from one segment to the next. By the time it's over it has become a testament to the inner resilience of women in coping with a critical moment in their lives ... Each segment seems perfectly shaped and timed, not lasting a second too long yet always of sufficient length to be satisfying in itself. García's large ensemble cast is impeccable, and he and his actors have created a film as memorable as it is subtle ... Nine Lives is a sophisticated, elegant-looking film shot in distinctive, wide-ranging L.A. locales, but its real terrain is the human heart, explored with compassion and respect." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times