I was suckered into this a bit and should have seen it coming. Saturday morning I call out what's on at Cineworld and the screening times, my partner picks one and if I don't quite remember the review or there's no obvious sign it'll be about of lot of men squaring up I agree . Anything to get away from this backlog of reviews. I can just sit back and watch for a change. Besides my partner tells me it features Hope Davis, whom I like. As my mother used to say, 'She takes a good part.'

Doh! What I'd forgotten that the one genre my partner really likes more than a lot of men being horrible is films with a supernatural element - people coming back to earth when they are dead or or going into forests and finding whole new worlds that disappear by morning. )On the way back from 'The Nines' he admitted under interrogation that he once subscribed to a magazine called 'Two Worlds'

Having said that, I thought the film was extremely watchable. The main male character, Ryan Reynolds, is very believable in three interconnected scenarios, all of which are interesting of themselves without all the spooky overtones.

In the first he is the star of in TV series who is put under house arrest after taking crack cocaine and causing a car accident. Hope Davis is his flirtatious neighbour and another less attractive ie chubby actor, played by Melissa McCarthy is his PR agent who tries to keep him from straying. In the second, and best, scenario he is a gay TV script writer who is persuaded by producer Hope Davis to sack the chubby girl who is an old friend and the star in his pilot episode. In the third he is married to the chubby one and when the car stalls on a remote mountain road he goes to fetch help and meets Hope Davis who says she will give him a lift.

There's a spooky looking child, again played by the same actress,Elle Fanning,in all three stories and a lot of gobbledy gook about numbers (the nines!) and reincarnation and I won't say how the stories are connected or even think about the meaning because it's where I don't want to go, but for those of you who like that kind of thing and even those who don't I'd heartily recommend the movie.

Sheila

I don't know how that smiley got in there and I don't seem to be able to get rid of it.