The Words Will Lull You To Sleep
The Words
Directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal
Written by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal
The review:
In 2012, the trailer for this film was paired with every movie I watched in theaters and I was not interested because it was one of those trailers that reveals pretty much everything.* However, this was the only unwatched DVD in the house** and there was no internet so I watched this film and found that there was a plot wrinkle the trailer hadn’t told me about that was, alas, not interesting enough to save the film.*** They did a great job making the 40s scenes look like the 1940s, but otherwise the acting ranged from okay to not great.
The verdict: Skip
Cost: I believe I paid some impulse-buy exorbitant amount of $12.99 or something. So this was $4.33
Where watched: at home
Consider watching instead:
- People Like Us (which I LOVE)
- Ruby Sparks (it has been packaged as a romantic comedy but it is NOT)
- The End of the Tour
- Wonder Boys
- Read the book One Day because the movie is a mere shadow of the novel
Further sentences:
*Also, it didn’t look like a very good film, even with all those actors I like who usually give good performances.
**How did a movie I am not interested in come to be in the house? It has to do with impulse buying at the grocery store. It was bundled in one of those Let’s Fleece the Customer at the Checkout Stand DVD packs and included the two movies I did want, The Vow and Dear John. This film is for sure the one thing that was not like the others in the package.
***I also found that it muddled things.
Questions:
- How did you find Bradley Cooper’s performance in this film?
- What did you think about the Olivia Wilde/Dennis Quaid interaction?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Lee Sternthal and Brian Klugman wrote the script back in 1999. As friends of Bradley Cooper before his The Hangover (2009) fame, they ask him to play the lead, he accepted then, and kept his word more than ten years later.
Other reviews of The Words:
- Ella Taylor, NPR
- Dana Stevens, Slate
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I wondered if this was pre-sobriety Bradley Cooper. He seemed off.
As to the Quaid/Wilde story, the Dana Stevens review states the situation well: “Is there anything worse than a nested Russian-doll narrative in which each successive layer is less interesting than the last.” It was kind of like the snow fort in Inception. One layer too many? Did it work for you?