Film Review: $9.99 (2008)

It’s not entirely uncommon in the indie film world to create films that don’t have a standard, singular story-line, but rather focus on several smaller story-lines, usually tied together by location or theme. These types of films can prove to be highly effective in delivering a more down-to-earth experience, presenting you with several characters essentially living their lives and dealing with relatable issues. However, the pitfall of this sort of structure is running the risk of the film lacking cohesion and telling several half-formed stories rather than one developed story. The 2008 stop-motion indie drama $9.99 does somewhat fall into this trap, but is still ultimately a watchable film, just maybe not as good as it could have been.

The film follows many different people who all live within an apartment complex in Sydney, Australia. Examples include an unemployed twenty-something who reads self-help/enlightenment books (which all cost $9.99) rather than seriously look for a job, his middle-aged father who is beaten down by life and is disappointed by the lives his two sons are leading, the twenty-something’s brother who starts up a relationship with a super model who wants him entirely shaven and smooth, their immature slacker neighbor who hallucinates himself partying with tiny imaginary college bros to escape from the pain of his breakup, a lonely old man who is visited by a recently deceased homeless man who has come back to Earth as an “angel” (or so he says), and a boy who saves up money for an action figure in a piggy bank, but ends up becoming more attached to the piggy bank and treating it like a pet. We jump between each story over the course of the film, seeing where they go and watching them intersect at different points. I don’t want to give them away, so I will say that each one does achieve an ending of sorts, even if I personally feel that most of them don’t end up imparting much.

Ultimately, the film seems to portray the downbeat and dead-end situations that many find themselves dealing with in the modern world. Many folks nowadays have found themselves disappointed with the way their lives have turned out, whether it be through losing someone close, failing to mature, or just not really having much of a direction in life at all. This movie portrays all of these sorts of issues and shows that there is always a way to find meaning in your life if you’re willing to try and find it.  However, the film’s ultimate problem is that the small individual stories don’t feel like they amount to much in the end. They’re not bad stories, per se, but they feel rather basic for the most part, and if you’ve experienced a good number of stories, they probably won’t have much to tell you that you haven’t heard before. It’s the sort of movie that leaves you going “yep, it’s that kind of movie, alright” (in this case, that movie being a quirky indie drama) rather than really hitting you in a meaningful way with its ideas. In this way, we run into another Rubin and Ed situation of it just kind of being of its type and not much more. However, as a film of its type, it’s not really a bad one. It’s competently put together, and it does manage to capture the bleak yet potentially hopeful scenario rather well, it’s just not going to hit you very deeply, or at least it didn’t for me. I do want to note the stop-motion style of the film, which has a somewhat rough feel to the animation and a grounded yet still stylized look to the models. I feel that it goes along with the overall concept and feel of the piece rather well, but I am aware that there are many folks that are averse to animation that isn’t entirely “clean,” so just keep that in mind before you watch this.

Give this film a shot if you’re into somewhat offbeat indie dramas or under-the-radar animation. I think you’ll have, at the very least, a decent time with it. I think it is important to expose yourself to a wide variety of material, even things that don’t entirely come together. If you don’t enjoy a work, you might still be able to take some things away from it that are valuable, no matter how small, so go find this movie somewhere out there, and if you’re lucky or the fates decide to be clever, you may only have to pay nine ninety-nine for it.