For Rent: The Nines

In John August's The Nines, Ryan Reynolds plays an actor, a TV writer, and a video game designer in three separate story lines that have something to do with each other but add up to less than the film promises. I've not cared much about Reynolds in the past; he seemed to smirk and glide his way through roles (though there's a moment in Just Friends where he agrees to see a Nicholas Sparks film that I could relate to). The Nines is the best work I've seen Reynolds do, and now I think it's kind of a shame he's into a cycle of Green Lantern and Deadpool movies and the like. Reynolds is particularly good as Gavin, a gay TV showrunner faced with an opportunity for success if he sells out a friend (Melissa McCarthy of Mike and Molly as herself.) It's a non-cute performance (the segment is filmed as a reality TV show) that has some gravity to it in a film that badly need some. What's it all about? I can't tell, except that you might want to be careful because the person next to you could have the power to destroy the world with a thought. The Nines is not a religious film, yet it's too vague to really be called "spiritual". Melissa McCarthy, marooned for years as a supporting player on Gilmore Girls, gets to be funny and strong and Hope Davis also pops up as a mystery woman in all three segments, Reynolds is worth watching, but I wish the mind behind The Nines had been a little clearer about what it was trying to say.