These days, literature is considered to be going the way of the dodo in terms of both popularity and relevance. Still, books seem to be resembling music more than that extinct bird…mainly in the fact that it seems to be going digital and is being represented on a wide variety of devices (e.g., Kindles).
Thus, while books are changing in how they’re presented, the fundamentals remain the same. One of the those fundamentals is the creator of any book, the man who brings these ideas to the world, the author. The Words shows the emergence of an author through both good and bad choices, and shows once again the power that literature has over us as people, and how just a few sentences can change the course of history.
In “The Words”, Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) is a 30-year old man with a beautiful wife (Zoe Saldana), a decent home and a passion for writing that’s going nowhere. As fate would have it, he discovers a briefcase that contains an unpublished piece of literature that blows Rory away. Copying it word for word, he publishes the book as his own and gains mass fame for it. Everything goes swimmingly…until the true author of the book (Jeremy Irons) comes to reclaim what’s his.
Bradley Cooper is taking an interesting career path, obviously gaining fame for “The Hangover” duology (soon to became an official trilogy with a third movie next May) and the average drama Limitless. Now, “The Words” is the first of three dramas he’ll be in this year that’ll push his profession in a new direction and this is certainly a fine start for that path.
He’s probably one of the weaker performers here, but when you’re playing with Jeremy Irons and J.K. Simmons, you’re in for some unfair comparisons. He emits a commendable amount of pathos in his performance and it certainly shows potential for future dramatic roles (this Thanksgiving he’ll be the lead in “The Silver Lining Playbook”, and if the trailers any indication, that’ll be his best performance ever).
The rest of the cast does a fine job, though it varies from person to person. Jeremy Irons once again does fantastic stuff here, pulling heartstrings and elevating his role to extraordinary dramatic heights. I certainly wish he did more movies, as this film just radiates the idea that Jeremy Irons giving a bad performance is as rare as a Texas blizzard.
Zoe Saldana is fine as Rory’s wife, though she disappears for long periods of time that leave her character feeling underdeveloped. Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde, meanwhile, play characters that I can’t reveal, due to this being a spoiler-free review. I will say that Quaid does a good job, while Wilde is the weakest actor in here. It also must be said that both these characters and their segment convolute the movie’s emotion and structure, something that definitely hurts the movie no matter how well the rest of it plays out.
Scripting wise, the film is structured surprisingly tight. The movie is shorter than most dramas (a lean 96 minutes is its running time) but this is to its benefit, as the characters’ plights don’t run on so long that we eventually tire of them. On the technical side, I was impressed by sets that took place in Europe in the 1940’s; a train station seemed a bit reminiscent of Hugo for my taste, but I still enjoyed seeing all those old automobiles along with some of that fancy architecture that Europe is famous for.
“The Words” isn’t a revolutionary flick, but it’s a genuine surprise in terms of acting and pacing and also has some wonderful technical aspects to its name. It’s nowhere near perfect (you can blame some poor structuring for that) but “The Words” uses its talented cast and unique premise well and for that it should be heartily commended. It has some flaws, but if “The Words” were a book, I would say it’s worth a read if you find the time.
