It’s a shame that the future of indie movie theaters is so uncertain. In another timeline, Nine Days would be a perfect fodder for small cinemas, a date movie for a person you’re trying really hard to impress.
The new movie, which just got its first trailer, stars Zazie Beetz and Winston Duke as unborn souls in a sort of blissful desert purgatory. They’re called to a shack to undergo a nine-day-long test to see which one of them will leave this in-between plane and be born into life on Earth. After the test, the unborn souls will snap out of existence while the winner will go on to really live. From the trailer, it seems things might be complicated when Winston Duke’s Will, the arbiter of the test, falls for the soul that would be Zazie. The other souls are no slouches either, with Bill Skarsgard, Tony Hale and Benedict Wong among them.
The film is a first from newcomer Edson Oda and is being executive-produced by Spike Jonze—a man who never met an alternate dimension he didn’t love. Jonze had nothing but praise for Oda and his odd, liminal love story.
“Edson is a special human with a special mind and heart. And Nine Days is a film that comes straight from within him and therefore is special in the exact same way. Delicate and deep, like the man himself," Jonze said.
Nine Days was a hit at this year's Sundance, getting snapped up by Sony Pictures Classics. They have set an optimistic release date of January 22.
You can watch the trailer above.
