Starring: Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons and Olivia Wilde
Distributor: Independent
Runtime: 102 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2012
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Perhaps it is not so surprising that many younger reviewers (thirty plus or minus) have not been impressed at all by The Words. Older reviewers have liked it. Yes, it is a film for older audiences who are interested in a more literate plot, even if it relies on some familiar devices, complexity of character, and arresting moral issues to chew on.
The film opens with Dennis Quaid reading from his recent book. In fact, quite a lot of voiceover from Quaid throughout the film. As he reads to his audience, the film visualises his story of a contemporary celebrated author who, after having his novels praised but not published, discovers a manuscript in an old brief case his wife buys him during their honeymoon in Paris. Of course, his dilemma is whether he should present it as his own or not, so moved is he in reading it. He resists, but circumstances, including his wife’s reading of the manuscript and telling him that he has revealed his truer and deeper self, he goes ahead. He is feted as a great and sensitive novelist.
The core of the story (and we ignore the coincidences and accept them as plot devices) is the approach of an old man who, we quickly, realize is the author of the manuscript. And, so, there are flashback as this back story comes to life, set at the end of World War II with a young American and a young Frenchwoman, their love and his writing their story – and its being lost. The celebrated author is played by Bradley Cooper who brings credibility to his role. The great benefit of the film is the presence of Jeremy Irons. He plays the old man (Ben Barnes in the flashbacks), moving in his telling of the story, challenging in his questions about the ethics of what has been done.
In the meantime, there is another plot development with Quaid and Olivia Wilde as a student who is a groupie of the author – which leads to Quaid finishing his story, but making the audience ask whether we are getting a story within a story, within…
The Words is not going to set the movie industry on fire. Rather, it offers some now old-fashioned pleasures of perhaps familiar plot devices in a story, stories, that have an emotional interest as well as raising questions as to the appropriating of the manuscript and what should be done to atone – or should that be an end of it?
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