Nine Days review: Existential drama about unborn souls competing for life lacks spark

If the soul exists, does it enter the world fully formed, cranked out by some celestial factory with a quota to meet? Nine Days, the feature filmmaking debut for São Paulo-born, LA-based director Edson Oda, is the latest to ponder this metaphysical terrain: it's the story of a pre-mortal bureaucrat, Will, whose job is to interview potential candidates for life – unborn souls awaiting the chance to shuffle onto this mortal coil. There's the shy one, the curious one, the 'funny' one and the headstrong problem solver, with a free-thinking wildcard – Zazie Beetz's Emma – serving as the dramatic catalyst for our dour, emotionally repressed hero. Oda is a successful commercial director whose work combines pop culture nostalgia and DIY technique, one of a slew of ad-world filmmakers whose work feels inspired by Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry – those erstwhile music video tricksters who clowned on high-concept premises with irreverent, inventive formalism in films like Being John Malkovich and The Science of Sleep. While there's something fascinating about Will's lonely voyeurism, the doomed limbo of an eternity spent watching other peoples' lives on screen, Oda's screenplay instead goads the film toward rote dramatic revelations about living your best life, all spliced with the kind of images – the simple pleasure of a bike ride, waves lapping a beach shoreline – that come off as cheesy where they're supposed to be poignant.