Attention writers who love writer movies! Unite! When the opportunity to see an advanced screening of The Words came my way, I went into it thinking that the film’s star, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), was all hair and blue eyes with frat boy good looks, never having been too impressed with his acting in the few films in which I have previously seen him. However, this movie has changed my opinion of the actor, as well as ushered me, a self-professed writer since the fourth grade, into yet another appreciation of how writers connect with their work on levels that transcend a lifetime of experience.
The movie is brought to us by first-time directors and the film’s writers, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal (both who developed the story for TRON: Legacy). They’ve shared what I can only call a beautiful transitional flow between gripping storylines that question moral boundaries, consequences, and the lengths at which we will go to medicate our suffering, much in the fashion that made audiences love Inception and critics clamor for The Hours. Yes, those are two pretty major films to tower over The Words, but if you see it for this weekend’s premiere, you’ll understand the comparison. I won’t offer any spoilers in this review, except for the fact that the trailer advertises the film in a way that unexpectedly allows for its mystery and tension to thrive on screen from shot to shot, while Cooper breaks new ground as a leading man.
The film focuses on Cooper’s character, a frustrated newlywed named Rory Jansen, who is struggling as a full-time writer. When we meet Rory, the downward spiral is just beginning for him to reach his potential as not only a writer, but also as a husband and man who can’t make ends meet after countless rejections from publishers. When he least expects to find inspiration, he discovers in an old briefcase a lost manuscript which haunts him one sleepless night after another.
His very adoring and supportive wife, played by the usually tough Zoe Saldana (Colombiana), convinces Rory to bring the powerful and moving story to publishers, not knowing that her husband is not the author. Upon the novel’s success, Rory is approached by an extremely aged and brilliant Jeremy Irons (The Borgias), who reveals his inspiration for writing the original story during his youth in Paris, and how it was lost in the briefcase, thus throwing the course of the rest of his life off balance.
However, Rory’s plight is not the only thing going on in the movie, which also includes Dennis Quaid (What To Expect When You’re Expecting) as contemporary writer Clay Hammond who is approached by a flirtatious grad student, Olivia Wilde (Cowboys & Aliens), one night after a public reading of his latest novel. Also, Irons’ flashbacks include Ben Barnes (The Big Wedding) as his younger self with French ingénue, Nora Arnezeder (Safe House), as his love, Celia, who understandably inspires the stolen story to begin with.
There are also some cameo appearances of well-known actors, which include J. K. Simmons (The Closer) as Rory’s father, as well as major players in the publishi
ng industry like Ron Rifkin (Brothers & Sisters), Michael McKean (This Is Spinal Tap), and Zeljko Ivanek (Seven Psychopaths).
In addition, you can’t have a movie about writing and writers without a reference to a famous novelist who the protagonist idyllically props on a pedestal for measuring his own adequacy. Enter: American writer Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), who both Rory and Barnes’ unnamed character turn to during their own periods of personal turmoil.
The Words seems like a very suspenseful thriller when Rory’s character is met with the moral dilemma of plagiarism, blackmail, and public destruction, yet the interactions between Cooper and Irons create a romantic embrace of possible redemption around the desperate act of theft that has taken place.
As a member of the audience and writer, I was very torn on what to make of Rory’s decision to knowingly steal someone else’s work, especially when he is the gracious recipient of such acclaim and respect by his family and peers. Consequently, the hidden twist subtly encourages the idea of how we inevitably perceive ourselves in the stories we choose to tell, whether they’re copied word-for-word from someone else, written for publication in a book, confessed by a stranger on a Central Park bench, or simply shared intimately in conversation over a glass of wine.
My rating: Klugman and Sternthal capture an intellectual gem of drama, serving a new and improved standard by which all future modern day writer movies should be measured. (8.5 / 10)
Recent Comments