70
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
9 Songs, for all its failed ambitions and its tinge of sexism, is lovely to watch.
9 Songs
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- United Kingdom
- 2004
- · 69m
Director
Michael Winterbottom
Cast
Kieran O'Brien,
Margo Stilley,
Courtney Taylor-Taylor,
Alex Kapranos,
Guy Garvey,
Robert Levon Been
Genre
Drama,
Music,
Romance
Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.
Stream 9 Songs
What are critics saying?
70
Variety by Derek Elley
A touching, often poetic, sometimes achingly real snapshot of a brief encounter related almost entirely through the bedroom.
63
New York Post
The film accurately reminds you, if you need reminding, what it's like to have your mind hijacked by somebody's body.
63
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
Michael Winterbottom nakedly goes where no "respectable" director has gone before - to sex and beyond! His provocative 9 Songs is the first movie by a director of Winterbottom's standing to depict real, uncensored sex between its lead actors.
60
TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox
Members of what used to be referred to euphemistically as the "raincoat crowd," will probably enjoy Winterbottom's experiment more than most.
50
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Nobody will go to see Michael Winterbottom's sexually explicit, novelty-act drama - a naughty peep show for sobersides, disguised as a nature documentary - to hear the songs; everyone will go to see the shagging, which occupies the majority of the screen time.
50
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Winterbottom never provides the empathic connective tissue we expect. Love it or not, 9 Songs amounts to a common human rite fastidiously caught in amber, giving off no heat or joy but crystallized for the future.
40
Film Threat
As 9 Songs played out for sixty-nine (count ‘em!) minutes, I started to find myself wishing they would just end the interminable, deliberately underlit, sex scenes and get back to those really hot pics of Antarctica.
30
The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias
Between the performances in the bedroom and on stage, 9 Songs gives off plenty of heat, but the whole project seems half-thought-out and hastily arranged, hampered by butt-ugly DV photography that turn skin tones grimy and make the Brixton scenes look as high-grain as a bowl of Mueslix.
30
The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen
An examination of a sexual relationship that's about as viscerally explicit as hardcore can get...But as satisfying viewing experiences go, the film comes up mighty short in terms of story, interesting characters and technical prowess.
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