Exhilarating film Nine Days leaves its mark

Cast: Winston Duke, Benedict Wong, Zazie Beetz Director: Edson Oda Duration: 2 h 4 m Available: In cinemas

“Just tell me the rules and I'll play the game.” It's a line delivered by one of the characters in the existential drama Nine Days, but it's also a version of what we ask of every movie we sit down to watch. They're not all constructed in the same way, but as long as they maintain a degree of self-consistency, we're usually game to ride along.

Nine Days, a first feature from Brazilian-Japanese writer-director Edson Oda, skates perilously close to breaking that contract, before putting down the flaps and gliding to a near-perfect landing. It's a sweet, exhilarating flight.

We begin the trip with Will (Winston Duke), who spends most of his time watching television. Not just any old TV, however. The 20 or so sets arrayed on his living room wall offer points-of-view of different lives. He takes great interest in a young woman named Amanda, but when something happens to her, the screen defaults to a test pattern, and we learn that Will's primary job is to interview potential new souls.

“You are being considered for the amazing opportunity of life,” he tells applicants, played by Tony Hale, Bill Skarsgård and others. If they are chosen, they'll move from this “beforelife” to the kind of existence you and I now experience. “No memories,” he says. “But you'll still be you.”

Oda provides just enough information to intrigue, without getting bogged down in the details of this metaphysical plane. We learn that Will used to be a human being in the real world, while his colleague Kyo (Benedict Wong, speaking in his native British accent) knows only what he watches on TV.

And while we never learn where the applicants come from, they arrive with personalities and a moral grounding, which they bring to bear on the trolley-problem-type questions Will throws at them.

Those who wash out over the nine-day testing period literally fade to nothingness, but not before Will, who's more of a softy than he lets on, engineers a final emotional experience for them.

Two more things of note: One is Oda's decision to ground the story in antiquated technology, giving it a timeless feel. Will uses VHS machines and sometimes just pen and paper to keep track of lives lived.

The other is Zazie Beetz, playing a hopeful soul who calls herself Emma. While everyone Will interviews is trying to figure out what he wants — “There are no wrong answers” never fooled anybody — she pushes back in very specific ways, determined to make sense of existence and maybe even leave her mark on it. It's a worthy goal, whether your journey lasts nine days, or 90 years.