The Words Reviews

The Words is horrible, a smug, self-satisfied piece of over-plotted nonsense that is horribly written and decently acted. Stay far, far away.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/10

A flat, humorless and unconvincing melodrama about a literary fraud.

Full Review | Original Score: C

A dreadful and terribly-paced drama that leads nowhere and is ultimately as empty as words can get.

Full Review | Original Score: .5/5

The look of the film, the intensity of the stories within stories, the musical score, and above all the nuanced acting by Cooper, Quaid and Jeremy Irons make this more than an ordinary film.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

The story within a story, which is kind of within another story, but really about ALL of the stories isn't something that is worth your time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10

Employing the murky plot construction of a story within a story within a story, The Words is well acted, thoughtful and too clever by half.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

ambitious, but emotionally distanced cinematic appreciation of the mysterious nature of literary art

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

. . .is under the impression that it is making a profound artistic statement about the creative impulse. It's not.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The only thing worse than a movie without an ending, is a ninety-minute endurance test without an ending.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

Sometimes you're flabbergasted when very good actors are in very bad films. But no-one sets out to make a bad movie. They just turn out that way. But, seriously, there's no way that the script of The Words could have appeared good to anyone, could it?

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

As a romantic drama, it's a tiresome dud.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10

Let's be honest, Cooper's at his best when playing a jagoff. He's like Bradley Whitford in that respect (maybe it's just the name "Bradley").

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

A mostly middling drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

The story-within-a-story-within-a-story is so slight and inconsequential, like the tiniest of a set of Russian nesting dolls, that we may be forgiven for letting our minds wander toward bedtime and tomorrow's errands.

Full Review

The storytelling method is more compelling than the actual stories themselves, which meander toward a collective final plot twist that is foreshadowed well in advance.

Full Review

When The Words focused on its core subject, I perked up. When it went off on lackluster tangents - which it does for more than half of its running time - I grew impatient.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Those willing to accept the movie on its own terms will almost certainly savor the opportunity to ponder the many engaging questions that it poses.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

The film is best when [Jeremy] Irons is on screen and his flash back story is told. The actor's weather worn face is a character unto itself.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

Described as both a romantic drama and a thriller, the film doesn't quite live up to the billing -- despite a premise rife with promise and a star-studded cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.7/10

The premise is ambitious -- if not a little hokey -- but the meager themes of ephemeral authorship and constructed realities aren't exactly revelatory.

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