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<\/p>\n
(The<\/em> Words<\/em>,\u00a0<\/strong>Written and directed by Brian Klugman and Leon Sternthal; PG-13)<\/p>\n I liked The Words<\/em> when I saw it, but I have to qualify that \u201cliking\u201d by adding that I saw it at Sundance. It was all the rage this year in Park City, mainly because, as one film student expressed it to me while shivering at a bus stop, \u201cIt looks like, you know, a real movie.\u201d\u00a0 There are always so many weird slash cheap slash foreign slash cheap slash experimental slash cheap slash \u201cthis is only here because it is so bleepin\u2019 politically correct\u201d slash cheap films at Sundance, that when you do catch one that has a little slickness in production value, the tendency is to heap it with raves as a gift of coherence and worth.\u00a0 At Sundance, it\u2019s so not about the audience that I often struggle with the feeling of intruding on the filmmakers\u2019 private cosmos while I\u2019m having the audacity to screen their films.<\/p>\n The Words<\/em> is the first feature screenplay by the team of Klugman and Sternthal and so is burdened by many of the usual beginning writer mistakes.\u00a0 Still it\u2019s far from dreadful, just awkwardly unaware of its own clich\u00e9s and lack of depth. \u00a0Somebody may have gutted the script, but I think it is more likely that because of the writers\u2019 inexperience, the project was never smart enough in the first place.\u00a0\u00a0 Most drama-prone viewers will come away liking parts of it and feeling as though the movie is grappling with something important, but not sure why it isn\u2019t something great to rave about to friends.\u00a0 I, for example, couldn\u2019t bring myself to see it again for this review.\u00a0 I thought about it, which says something, but then couldn\u2019t make myself sit through it twice, which says something else.<\/p>\n The premise is very good, really the best thing in the piece.\u00a0 The dilemma for Bradley Cooper\u2019s starving, unpublished novelist is one of which every artist can feel the power because creativity is so damn hard and producing something worthy even when you have a great idea is even more grueling.\u00a0\u00a0 The movie invites us into the delicious hypothetical: what if I stumbled over an amazing piece of work, and then was able to pass it off as my own?\u00a0 (gurgle of wicked laughter)\u00a0\u00a0 Could I live happily if everybody thought I was better than I really am?\u00a0\u00a0 Sadly for the story (and Hollywood and the human family), the movie doesn\u2019t have much to offer by way of answers to these. \u00a0 It\u2019s endemic with Gen-X stories that they have compelling questions but no authoritative answers. \u00a0 (Somebody smack a Boomer for us all.)\u00a0 Still, I give the movie chops for actually suggesting that crime really doesn\u2019t pay and that choices have consequences. \u00a0 I wish the film had had the courage to have the main character suffer from his choice before he is confronted by it.\u00a0 But that\u2019s probably too Christian an underpinning for most studio executives to allow.<\/p>\n The movie is dragged down by its way too cute structural device of telling a story in a story in a story.\u00a0 Ironically, because of a lack of conflict, the movie has too many stories and not enough plot.\u00a0\u00a0 The A-story here, and the one that we mostly care about is the one featuring Cooper as writer Rory.\u00a0 Early on, however, we figure out that Rory\u2019s story isn\u2019t really \u201creal,\u201d but just a story being told by the, kind of, jerky author in the C-story.\u00a0 Which kind of guts our emotional journey.\u00a0 The B-story, which we care about less than the A-story but more than the C-story, is from the purloined novel and is about love and loss in sepia-toned WWII Paris.\u00a0 The C-story comes down to an annoyingly fatuous flirtation between the writer of the A and B story, played by Dennis Quaid and one of his groupies, played by Olivia Wilde.\u00a0\u00a0 There is no story in the C-story but rather one long conversation meant to hash out the moral dilemmas in the A-story \u2013 just in case you aren\u2019t getting how cool and important the premise is.<\/p>\n Probably the best part of the movie is Rory\u2019s gradual descent into deceit. \u00a0He isn\u2019t a bad guy, which is, a key part of a relatable character. \u00a0He is a character weakened by failure and need, and it allows him to flirt with evil, and then entertain it, and then lose himself in it. \u00a0It\u2019s a spiraling dance downward of which we all should live in fear.<\/p>\n Production design is fine for most of the story here.\u00a0 The Paris part is a bit cheaply done, but not enough to distract.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t much to say about the acting, mainly because there isn\u2019t that much for the actors to do.\u00a0 It is particularly painful to watch Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde flail around drinking in each other in between gulps of champagne.\u00a0 Jeremy Irons is great to watch, and Bradley Cooper has the cute thing he does wrinkling his forehead, and Zoe Saldana is lovely.\u00a0 Watching their lives unravel is never as emotional as it should have been, but it\u2019s mostly pleasant to follow.<\/p>\n So, The Words<\/em> is a bit too wordy and a bit weak on movement, but there is a clear arc of transformation for the main character as his sins wreak their consequences. \u00a0 It looks good and does keep you wondering how it\u2019s all going to end. \u00a0The movie is good not great, but if you are hungry for a drama without gratuitous sex and violence, you\u2019ll find it a good night at the movies.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 (The Words,\u00a0Written and directed by Brian Klugman and Leon Sternthal; PG-13) I liked The Words when I saw it, but I have to qualify that \u201cliking\u201d by adding that I saw it at Sundance. It was all the rage this year in Park City, mainly because, as one film student expressed it to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n