Review of The Words (2009) by Stacey O — 10 Oct 2012

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Swanner: Both Brian and I went to see The Words without actually watching the preview. I knew it was a romantic drama but I didn't want Brian to know till we got there. Once we sat down I could tell Brian was on edge. Turns out he knew what kind of film it was and still came...what a trooper. The film starts with Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) reading the opening of his new book. As he reads you realize that Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons and Zoë Saldana are all characters in his book and I'm already pulling away from the film.

Judd: But wait, it gets better! Clay Hammond is reading his book about Rory Jansen (Cooper) who is a writer, and apparently a crappy one, who finds a long lost manuscript and publishes it as his own. Then The Old Man (Irons) shows up as the real author and tells the story of the manuscript. So you have Quaid telling a story about an old man telling a story stolen by a man who can't write a story. And what's the motivation behind all this? Co-ed poon.

Swanner: This worked in the Princess Bride but for me it was just distracting here. I actually enjoyed the Cooper/Irons storyline till the women get involved. Both of the men are struggling with things and when they have their moment the women internalize the situation and I'm looking at my watch. Directors/writers Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal are new to the production game and it shows. Whether it's the silly script or that fact that Cooper is mooning through most of the movie. I hated that damn "look I'm a writer" jacket Cooper wore while he did some light reading in the park. Don't even get me started on Olivia Wilde...

Judd: I agree. I liked the action between Irons and Cooper and it was the only time the movie was interesting. Any time a female was involved in the plot, the movie took a dive. All the success and trouble that the men encountered was a direct result of the women. While I'm sure it was a clumsy attempt at making the women into individual muses, Klugman and Sternthal ended up creating women that were selfish nags who broke into tantrums whenever they were faced with the problems they "inspired". They were detestable characters, which ended up making an already flimsy movie even worse.

Swanner: I don't want to make it sound like the acting wasn't good, it was but the script was just too awful. Okay, Olivia Wilde was bad but she had the worse part in the film. It really was all based on co-ed poon. I wish you hadn't mentioned that because now I hate this film more than I did. I never got over the narrative and Quaid's flirting with Wilde made the in-between scenes difficult to watch. Jeremy Irons deserves better than this and so do I.

Judd: The ending is what made me really hate this movie. Rather than letting the audience digest the moral on their own, it tried to take all the moral uncertainties in the movie and recap them, then tell us why they were neither good nor bad whilst making Wilde come off as a shrew,. It was a preposterous ending to an equally preposterous movie.

Swanner: *.

Judd: *.