Every Valentine’s Day needs a killer date movie at the box office, and this year the seriocomic romance Definitely, Maybe looks to be the flick for the job.

That makes me happy for two reasons: one, the movie is shaping up to be a lot better than mediocre past V-Day hits like Hitch and The Wedding Singer; and two, since it stars Ryan Reynolds, it gives me a chance in this column to highlight his last movie, which I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I saw it a few weeks back.

That film, The Nines, has Reynolds playing three roles, and is the directorial debut of screenwriter John August – a guy who not only has penned some really terrific movies (Big Fish, which he adapted from a Daniel Wallace novel, is one of my all-time favorites), but also maintains possibly the best screenwriting blog in existence, at http://www.johnaugust.com/. As is probably glaringly obvious, I’m a pretty big fan, but even I was sort of taken aback by just how original and ambitious – and, definitely, divisive – his first effort behind the camera ended up being.

Let me get the standard disclaimer out of the way first: The Nines is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it kind of movie, and its final twist is either going to leave you breathlessly in awe or so angry you’ll be chucking things at your TV. I fell pretty squarely into the former camp, though, and I think for anyone willing to accept the film’s unconventional style, puzzling narrative, and surprisingly insistent spiritual and psychological undercurrents, it’s bound to leave a lasting impression. Oh, and don’t worry – it’s also about as entertaining as a metaphysical head-scratcher could ever possibly be.

To be as vague as possible (and, trust me, with this one you’ll want me to be), The Nines encompasses a trio of stories bound together by connections that aren’t fully revealed until the end. In the first, Reynolds plays the burnt-out star of a CSI-like TV crime drama, who suffers a drug-fueled breakdown and ends up confined – under strictly enforced house arrest – to a rented mansion where he must contend with his uber-cheery but take-no-prisoners publicist (Melissa McCarthy), a flirtatious neighbor (Hope Davis), and a growing feeling that either the house is haunted or he’s completely losing his mind.

The second story, framed as a faux reality show, casts Reynolds as a thinly-veiled version of August, a young, gay, in-demand Hollywood writer struggling to bring a television pilot to the screen while a camera crew follows him around, documenting his efforts for a behind-the-scenes reality series.

In the final segment, he’s the designer of an exceedingly popular World of Warcraft-like massively multiplayer video game, who gets stranded in the woods while vacationing with his family and meets a mysterious – maybe dangerous – woman while trying to call for help.

McCarthy, Davis, and a handful of other actors – like The Office’s David Denman – show up playing different characters in all three segments, and in each August drops tantalizing clues as to what, exactly, the film’s title refers to (it’s along the lines of an old Pixies lyric you might remember, but that’s as much as I’ll say). The final explanation, when The Nines finally arrives at it, is beautifully handled, less a Usual Suspects-esque pulling out of the rug than a poignant revelation that perfectly ties together the film’s recurring themes of creation and self-identity.

Again, though, it’s to August’s credit that the film remains fun, intriguing, and amusing even though it’s clearly got some really big ideas on its mind; he’s got a way with sharp dialogue and keep-you-guessing plotting, and even when the captivating weirdness subsides for long stretches of screen time, you still care about what’s happening to the characters. The supporting cast is superb – especially McCarthy, a friend of August’s who plays herself in segment two – but, really, it’s Reynolds who carries the whole enterprise; if you’ve only seen him in silly comedies like his breakthrough film, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, you’ll surely be impressed with the range and depth he displays here.

Despite Reynolds’ growing popularity, though, I’m not surprised that The Nines wasn’t released to a lot of fanfare – even August himself said he expected it to find its audience on dvd. I think that’s definitely true, and that this is exactly the kind of movie that’s eventually going to win over an enthusiastic cult of appreciators and join that esteemed group of cinematic head trips (Pi, Primer, Donnie Darko, etc.) set to fuel heated film-geek discussions for years to come.