Check Out the Trailer

Based on the animated short film A BUCK’S WORTH, this ambitious stop-motion animated feature takes on the not-so-bargain-bin topic of the meaning of life. Various lives intersect in an apartment complex. A Dear John loser. An unemployed, master cook do-gooder. A lonely old man. A young boy saving for a toy. A hallucinating man-boy. A ladies-man repo man. A supermodel. A suicidal homeless angel. You know the typical characters in an animated feature.

Starting the feature like the short film (which can be viewed on AWNtv), Jim Peck (Anthony LaPaglia, TV’s WITHOUT A TRACE) has an unsettling run-in with a homeless man (Geoffrey Rush, SHINE), who later sprouts wings and moves into the house of lonely widow Albert (Barry Otto, STRICTLY BALLROOM), who is so desperate for human interaction that he gets excited when telemarketers call. Depressed after his encounter with the homeless man, Jim puts more pressure on his do-gooder son Dave (Samuel Johnson, TV’s THE SECRET LIFE OF US) to try working with his brother Lenny (Ben Mendelsohn, AUSTRALIA). The problem is that nice-guy Dave isn’t cut out for the repo business. He’s more interested in finding the answers to life from a book priced at $9.99.

Meanwhile, the sad teacher Michelle (Claudia Karvan, AQUAMARINE) walks out on her boyfriend Ron (Joel Edgerton, SMOKIN’ ACES), who loafs around all day drinking beer, smoking pot, and fooling around with three two-inch-tall immature college students. The little boy in the apartment, Zack (Jamie Katsamatsas), wants a new action figure badly, but his father, instead of buying him the toy, gives him 50-cent pieces for drinking his milk. Zack saves them away in his pinky bank, which he becomes quiet attached to. During a repo job, Lenny meets supermodel Tanita (Leeanna Walsman, STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES), but how far will he go for love?

Written with Etgar Keret, director Tatia Rosenthal combines the real with the surreal. All the characters are in the pursuit of happiness, but they’re all going down their own paths, which just happen to crisscross from time to time. Some characters are clueless and others are depressed. Rosenthal’s pacing is deliberate, creating a somber mood, punctuated from time to time with dry wit and strange fantasy. She handles the fantasy with a matter-of-fact approach. Albert is so lonely that he doesn’t mind at all that the freeloading, obnoxious angel has squatted in his house. Lenny and Tanita’s relationship goes to bizarre fetish territories that are quite unexpected, yet oddly romantic… in a twisted sort of way. In all accumulates into wonderful sardonic wit.

The stop-motion is good, especially the subtlety of the acting. Because it’s a simple dramedy, the animators never given complex action to tackle. It’s a testament to Rosenthal’s talents as a director that she kept the talky film visual interesting. Her camerawork is rarely static. While the pacing does lag a bit in the middle, due to keeping all the storylines in the air for the whole film, the lesser interesting segments never bring down the entire production, and all the stories end with nice touches of whimsy and/or honesty. The title might signal cheapness, but $9.99 is actually a rich production.

Opens in L.A. at the Laemmle Music Hall (9036 Wilshire Blvd.) for its Oscar run this Friday, Dec. 12.