John August, writer of such savoir fair as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, and Go, makes his directorial debut with The Nines, a film made up of three short stories threaded through the same narrative loop. Watching the same actors inhabit vastly different roles (and vastly different hair colors), the connections become more intimately tied, until the three stories become the same story in a way I'll leave for you to figure out.The camerawork is savvy and sly, the performances have all the harrowing subtlety of a haiku, the dialogue is crisp and convincing (even when the interactions make hairpin turns from serious to silly to fiercely philosophical), and the science behind the stuff gets quietly explained in the opening moments as a green string gets split into individual threads, then twined together, then tied around a wrist.
Don't think string theory can tug at your heart strings? Then don't miss the Nines.
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