Butler's Cinema Scene

Jamie Dornan, Aiden Longworth

“THE 9th LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX” My rating: C-

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“The 9th Life of Louis Drax” has been competently produced and adequately acted.

Nonetheless, I hated it.  Phoniness oozes from every frame (assuming that “frames” even exist in digital film).

In a hospital bed in a special ward dedicated to pediatric coma victims, little Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) vegetates.

Apparently while on a family picnic the boy was thrown off a cliff and into the sea by his father. A statewide manhunt is now underway to track down this paternal monster.

Sarah Gadon

Meanwhile Louis’ mom, the long-suffering Natalie (Sarah Gadon), waits moist-eyed by his bedside. She’s so sensitive. So fragile yet so strong for her son. So freakin’ hot.

Who can blame Louis’ hunky young M.D., Allan Pascal  (Jamie Dornan of “Fifty Shades…” fame), for experiencing flickerings of lust…flickerings which Natalie suggests might be reciprocated, her recent tragedy notwithstanding?

Directed by French helmer Alexandre Aja (“The Hills Have Eyes” remake, “High Tension”) and scripted by Max Minghella (from Liz Jensen’s novel), “The 9th Life of Louis Drax” is a con job, a not-so-mysterious mystery (I had more or less figured out the truth halfway through) that attempts to mask its predictability with a time-leaping narrative, fantasy sequences and obfuscatory storytelling.

The film begins with a montage of the many times in his young life that Louis Drax has cheated death.  Little Louis narrates this parade of near-horrors, describing himself as accident prone. Well, duh. Electrocution, falls…the kid is almost comically clumsy.

This segment is presented as a semi-playful fable about a little boy who just can’t be killed. It’s borderline charming in an “Amelie” vein.

Aaron Paul, Aiden Longworth

In considerably grimmer flashbacks we are introduced to Louis’ mother and father (“Breaking Bad’s” Aaron Paul), who over the years drift from coziness to acrimony. Mom and Dad are more or less estranged, although the movie plays coy about who or what is at fault.

We also get sequences unfolding inside poor Louis’ head.  In these scenes he is threatened (or is it befriended?) by a slime-covered being resembling the comics’ Swamp Thing.

And then Dr. Pascal —  a walking malpractice lawsuit, what with his lustful feelings for Natalie and his unconventional therapies — wires himself up to the sleeping Louis in a sort of high-tech Vulcan mind meld so that he can peer into the kid’s troubled psyche.

“9th Life…” offers a queasy blend of cute and creepy, horror story elements, medical psychobabble and good old-fashioned heavy panting. (Based on her work here and in the recent “Indignation,”  Gadon has cornered the market on neurotic blondes.)

But even a modestly perceptive viewer will figure out the film’s big reveal early on. And few things are as frustrating for audiences as waiting for the movie to catch up with them.

| Robert W. Butler