Ah, the age-old mystery… trying to work out the meaning of life brings purpose to some and scepticism to others – Bart Simpson has a book on it, and the Monty Python team satirised it. But let’s get serious and face the fact that life isn’t all peachy, and accept that we always try to rid ourselves of the pain for want of happiness. The fickle thing about the meaning of life is that there’s never one straight answer, and everyone’s interpretations best suit their personal situation. Stories that tackle this agenda face the risk of opening themselves up to criticism if they don’t entirely believe in what they’re saying… $9.99 does, but it struggles to reveal exactly what it wants to convey.

A Sydney apartment block plays home to all the characters within a series of plots regarding life, love and loneliness. Dave Peck (voiced by Samuel Johnson) discovers the meaning of life through a book, but father Jim (Anthony LaPaglia) doesn’t want to hear it. His brother Lenny (Ben Mendelsohn) falls in love with supermodel Tanita (Leeanna Walsman) who’s a smooth operator, Michelle (Claudia Karvan) and Ron (Joel Edgerton) are on a split, young boy Zack (Jamie Katsamatsas) pines over action figure Soccer Jack and old widower Albert (Barry Otto) is visited by a cynical angel (Geoffrey Rush). While their stories don’t intertwine into some grand finale a la Love Actually, we learn about the characters enough to understand what they’ve come to expect from themselves. According to them, the way to happiness is to give it out to others. While that’s admirable, shouldn’t we remember the saying ‘before you can love others you must love yourself’? Doesn’t the same thing apply? Sure, we see how life can pathetically be – pitying the loneliness highlighted through the telemarketer’s phone calls, but how we think about and process emotions determines us as beings.

The Israeli influence in this Australian co-production is kept behind the scenes, using the third collaboration between Cannes Camera d’Or winner Etgar Keret and Tatia Rosenthal. But although we appreciate them and the A-list voices in the Australian-set story, it comes across as quite amateur. For an adult animation it’s disappointing because we should be able to read between the lines – $9.99 screams for its audience to look for metaphors about life and love, but its weird conclusions are so puzzling that it hurts to wonder why they’ve made it so hard. It tries everything from ideas of the lonely child to sexual emotion (and intercourse) and its messages are muddled. Getting your bones removed for love; Dave’s faith in his book and yet an angel with wings can’t fly… such is life apparently. The choice to use stop-motion-claymation is also questionable because it detracts from the actual story; supermodel Tanita’s obsession with a smooth surface is ironic when you see how slimy and almost grotty she and the other characters look. It looks childish but its themes certainly weren’t which makes the whole thing have a slight creepiness about it. There is growth with each character but that doesn’t make us like them any more or less.

Verdict

After the smooth finish of Mary and Max earlier this year, $9.99 can’t match up with its similar dark themes. The meaning of life escapes us yet again.

Follow the author Katina Vangopoulos on Twitter.