By the looks of this stop-motion animated movie, it would be right at home on Adult Swim or Liquid Television. But $9.99 is wholly different and harder to sell, with its serious production values, voice work (by Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia), and an absurd narrative that begins when a slacker buys a book promising the meaning of life for a mere $9.99. Through a series of surreal vignettes, we see how the book affects him, his family, and neighbors. "An aura of dreamy melancholy, accentuated by Christopher Bowen's musical score, pervades the entwined stories, which treat the bizarre and the banal as sides of the same coin" (The New York Times). Based on short stories by Etgar Keret. In English.

Tatia Rosenthal---Israel/Australia---2008---78 mins.

• E1 Entertainment
• Release date: 02/23/2010
• Letterboxed