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Movie:		2.0
Picture:		7.0
Sound:		4.0
Extras:		2.0
Score:		3.0

Director(s):	Tatia Rosenthal
Writer(s):	Tatia Rosenthal & Etgar Keret (Screenplay), Etgar Keret (Short Stories)
Starring:	Anthony LaPaglia • Barry Otto • Ben Mendelsohn • Brian Meagan • Claudia Karvan • Geoffrey Rush • Jamie Katsamatsas • Joel Edgerton • Leeanna Walsman • Samuel Johnson
Genre:	Animation • Comedy
Release Date:	February 23, 2010
Rated:

List Price:	DVD - $22.49
Amazon:

$9.99 is the kind of movie you feel really, really bad about not liking. It uses stop-motion animation (arguably the most tedious form of animation to produce), and does so to a degree that could be called masterful. That's why it saddens me to see what seems like years of a meticulous process wasted on an uninspiring story and a dull set of characters.

The movie is a mish-mash account of a handful of characters' stories that are so unbelievably boring I caught myself holding a spoon under my nose to see if I was still breathing, the tragedy being that I was. The dullness is somewhat masked by the interweaving story lines; if one were to pluck out the scenes of each storyline and reassemble each of them to form individual tales, the languid nature of the thing would become apparent. I won't go so far as to say nothing happens. Things happen, they're just not very interesting.

The characters in this world all share one commonality - they are all searching for happiness. What makes one or the other happy is not always discussed. The main character, for lack of a better word, finds an advertisement selling a book for $9.99 that explains the meaning of life, or meanings, as the book indicates there are six. The filmmakers unfortunately play it safe and leave out what the six reasons are, along with anything else interesting the book claims to explain. The movie could have benefited from such risk-taking. Instead, we see the character who purchased the book try to talk about it with anyone who will listen, but no one is interested. They're all too busy looking for what's missing in their lives.

Out of this ensemble of characters, the most compelling is that of the angel. We know he's an angel by his impressive wingspan. Why he has wings is puzzling, as he is unable to fly. Wings to an angel must be like wings to an ostrich. What's more puzzling is the angel's persistent mooching and all-around attitude. I know he's a homeless-man angel, so I get it, he's rough around the edges. But when all is said and done, the angel has nothing poignant to say or do. He's just about as useless to the movie as those wings are to him. Another narrative thread sees a child wanting to buy a toy so his father gives him a piggy bank. The boy adds a coin to the piggy bank. Then adds another. Then adds another. By the end, the pig is full, but he has become so accustomed to the pig that he has no desire to break it. Oh, the irony. The real irony is that $9.99 is around the amount of money I would pay not to see this.

The animation, however, is so very, very slick and impressive that every nay-saying word I type hurts a little. I wish the filmmakers had chosen to stick with short films. The convoluted mixture of bland short stories gets old fast, and the payoff is hardly worth the time spent watching. The DVD contains a couple shorts made by the director, both animated in the same style and nearly as well. But the stories just don't hold water when strung out together to form one contrived, continuous feature.

When the best part of a movie is its short runtime (just under 80 minutes) then something isn't right. Due to its uncanny inability to draw in the audience, $9.99 is not an easy watch. Unless you have a keen interest in the art of stop-motion animation, and are able to sit still for over an hour with no hint of an intriguing plot emerginh, there is no reason to see this.

DVD Extras:

One trailer and two animated shorts that were pretty interesting. But nothing else. So much work was done and time spent on making this, why did they not record any of it? I sprouted gray hairs and developed a smoking habit just from writing the last paragraph of this review; I can only imagine the level of stress and drama experienced from making this film.