Last night I went to the screening of $9.99. I had...

Last night I went to the screening of $9.99. I had high expectations for the film when I first heard about it. Mainly because I want to make animated features for an adult audience, and I really want films like this to be good so that genre can succeed. And for the first time in a while, this film exceeded my expectations. It was a truly honest film about a number of different people dealing with things everyone deals with. Unemployment, love, family, loneliness and death. These stories were tackled with a sense of humour yet retained a gritty undertone. The cast was brilliant - some amazing Australian actors including Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia and Barry Otto.

The look of the film was cute, silicon/foam latex puppets that show their flaws as much as the characters themselves do. The animation was nicely done, sure it wasn’t Coraline level, but this is indie film at it’s best!

It was interesting to hear how the co-production formed. The film was directed by Tatia Rosenthal, who studied here in New York at Tisch. She mentioned she had been trying to get funding for this film here in the states for about 7 years. Her Australian producer found out that the funding organisations in Aus were looking for people to co-produce with Israel and they made it happen. Within 6 months of following this lead, the film was funded. All they had to do was make the script more Australian. Honestly it’s a little sad that Australian directors aren’t making it happen, but I’m glad someone is.

I’m not sure what they’re distribution is like, but you should definitely check it out if you hear it’s playing.

EDIT- Jeremy said this which I thought was a beautiful summary “Complex, eerie, and all around enjoyable. Sort of felt like Amelie meets Eternal Sunshine, with a twist of Iñárritu”

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