A somewhat self-indulgent work by writer-director John August, The Nines is more thoughtful than 10 and slightly less solipsistic than 8½. It unfolds in three apparently consecutive, but in fact concurrent stories, featuring Ryan Reynolds as three seemingly different Hollywood types (a TV star, a screenwriter, a video-game designer) who are probably the same person. The women involved - slim, edgy Hope Davis, ample, confident Melissa McCarthy - provide an erotic and comic voltage to counteract Reynolds's blandness. The subject is perception and creativity and the creator's responsibility to, and for, what he creates, even if he happens be God. It's intellectual candyfloss, an encounter between Bishop Berkeley and Busby Berkeley on Sunset Strip.