What, exactly, is The Meaning of Life?

Beyond the Fringe supplied an answer in the '60s: "Life is a can of sardines -- and we're all looking for the key." Monty Python would later supply another.

The most recent answer is to be found in "$9.99," one of the weirdest -- and most entertaining -- international productions to date, an Israeli-Australian animated puppet feature directed by Tatia Rosenthal from a script by Etgar Keret.

---

'$9.99'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Rating: R for language and brief sexuality and nudity.
• Web site: www.9dollars99movie.com/

---

"$9.99" opens with a bang -- literally: A gun-toting panhandler prevails upon dour, sour Jim Peck for a cigarette, then launches into a heavy monologue ("In my field, I see a lot of manipulation") before shooting himself in the head.

If you get the impression this is going to be more serious than most animated films, you are correct.

Jim's wife ran away with another man years ago. His 28-year-old son Dave is an unemployed gourmet cook, who lives at home and runs across an ad for a book -- "yours for just $9.99!" -- that claims to explain the Meaning of Life, and soon changes his own.

Dave tries, but largely fails, to share its revelations with his apartment-block world. This includes his brother Lenny, a repo-man afflicted by 2-inch-tall midget party animals. Lenny is obsessed with supermodel Tanita, who has a fetish for hairless men. Downstairs lives a little boy named Zack, who has an anthropomorphic piggy bank. Upstairs is lonely old Albert, whom nobody will listen to -- even telemarketers hang up on him -- until a peevish Angel (the voice of Geoffrey Rush) moves in with him and reveals the secrets of Heaven.

Keret, a major Israeli writer, previously collaborated with director Rosenthal on her two award-winning animated shorts, "Crazy Glue" and "A Buck's Worth." Here in "$9.99," they use a kid's genre to express very adult ideas. This has to be the first Claymation animated film with a post-coital nude scene! And believe it or not, it's truly sexy.

The interwoven stories of Keret's bizarre characters in this sly, 78-minute satire plumb the post-modern possibilities of hope in a morally ambiguous world. Quirky and enigmatic, real and surreal, it is infused with Keret's bittersweet sense of humor. That Geoffrey Rush character, for example?

Turns out, "He wasn't really an angel -- he was just a liar with wings."

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.