Unjustly ignored and beautiful to look at, The 9th Life of Louis Drax is both a family mystery and a telling look into the darkness of childhood.
One of the reasons The 9th Life of Louis Drax was more or less ignored by audiences upon its release last fall is because it is truly an oddity of a film, not too easy to categorize. The film’s content plays out with plenty of elements from early Steven Spielberg and later Stephen King. Meanwhile director Alexandre Aja has littered the supernatural mystery with plenty of the kind of arthouse cinema-like moments which have become his calling card. Despite this, along with the presence of a somewhat bankable movie star, the film was pronounced D.O.A. when it hit theater screens. That is simply too bad since the film is not only a beautiful visual marvel, but also a somewhat clever look into a unique child-like psyche.
Based on the bestselling novel by Liz Jensen, The 9th Life of Louis Drax stars Aiden Longworth as the film’s title character, a highly-accident prone boy who while on a picnic with his quibbling parents Natalie (Sarah Gadon) and Peter (Aaron Paul) experiences a terrible fall off a cliff onto the rocks below. After he is pronounced dead shortly before arriving at the hospital, Louis shows signs that he’s actually alive and in a coma. Soon he is brought to a clinic headed by Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan), who specializes in coma patients and is at once greatly intrigued by Louis’s history. As he digs into the boy’s past, however, he finds himself plunging into a mystery darker than he imagined.
What stands out most about The 9th Life of Louis Drax is its tone, which is pure playfulness mixed with undeniable darkness. The film comments on one of the starkest aspects of humanity possible, yet somehow miraculously is able to maintain a magical, childlike feel to it thanks to its main character. There are two stories, two movies, and essentially two worlds operating here. The first is the practical mystery of what happened to Louis on that cliff and what has been plaguing him throughout his entire existence, making him accident prone and giving him life after life. With a femme fatale-like mother, a father who hasn’t been seen since the accident, and an innocent doctor at the center of it all, the film offers up enough of a central mystery to keep audiences hooked.
The flip side of the film largely takes place in Louis’s comatose subconscious, where the 9-year-old is seen conversing with monster who is mostly shrouded in darkness. It’s here where we start to uncover the film’s true mystery, which is Louis himself. The character is certainly a puzzle of a child with his views and theories on why he is the way he is. Louis exists in a special realm which isn’t any place that’s explainable or easily defined, much like the film itself.
Greatly aiding the film’s dual mystery are the many wonderful technical aspects which comprise the look and feel of The 9th Life of Louis Drax. The pacing is fantastic. Never once does Aja let his movie drag; he knows exactly when to move back and forth between the two worlds depicted, which also include a number of flashbacks. It’s this kind of architecture which keeps a movie feeling both fresh and exciting. The lighting does its part, giving off a special glow which gives the whole affair a dreamlike quality, particularly in the hospital scenes. Finally, there’s a great use of imagery at work, with the aforementioned monster and the general world Louis finds himself in, painted as one of true wonder.
Sometimes famous actors take on roles for no other reason to prove that they’re capable of much more than the vehicles which gave them fame would have led their fans and critics to believe. At least I’m assuming that explains the involvement of both Dornan and Paul here. The Fifty Shades actor seems so grateful for the gig that he seems at a loss at how to play his (somewhat drab) character. At least Paul (given more to work with) invests his scenes with some real emotional weight, justifying his participation. Gadon oozes the appropriate amount of mystery, while appearances by Oliver Platt as Louis’s former psychiatrist, Barbara Hershey as his grandmother, and Molly Parker as the detective investigating the case of Louis’s fall all bring their typical A-game. Yet it’s Longworth who steals the show as the film’s star, giving the right kind of self-awareness and rambunctiousness to Louis without ever making him annoying.
The 9th Life of Louis Drax represents yet another departure for Aja as a director. In fact, it’s probably his most uncharacteristic offering to date. Known for his explorations in horror such as High Tension and Maniac, which employed brutal violence against decidedly artful cinematic backdrops, the director has always maintained a curious relationship with genre fans thanks to the constant juxtaposition of his films. Even Mirrors, one of his most famous works, has as many admirers as it does detractors. The 9th Life of Louis Drax may only serve to further polarize Aja, but few will be able to refute the film’s unorthodox comments on the traditional notions of innocence and experience and how poetic he makes them come off.
The Package
There’s a making-of feature included in the release which is so brief that it almost plays out like a trailer with a collection of talking head clips.
The Lowdown
A supernatural mystery with moments of dark imagination, The 9th Life of Louis Drax may well be one of the most underrated films of 2016 worth checking out.
The 9th Life of Louis Drax is now available on Blu-ray and DVD from Lionsgate.
