{"id":3734,"date":"2012-09-06T17:57:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T00:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=3734"},"modified":"2012-09-06T17:57:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T00:57:51","slug":"too-much-talking-makes-the-words-meaningless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=3734","title":{"rendered":"Too much talking makes THE WORDS meaningless"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThe straight and easy on this one:\u00a0 \u201cThe Words\u201d is about a man who narrates to us excerpts from \u00a0his book about a man who published a book that he didn\u2019t write. The actual author of the plagiarized book shows up and then narrates to the thieving man his own story about how and why he wrote the thieved novel in the first place. \u00a0Double narration. Writer on writer action. The film spends a load of time talking<\/em> about what is going on instead of actually being about <\/em>what is going on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This clunky plot is so poorly designed that it distracts from any good that may be found within. The film becomes more about the structure of the story than the story itself.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If anything is to be learned from this film it is do not let Dennis Quaid narrate your movie. The man drones on and sounds like he\u2019s reading as opposed to talking. I realize that he IS reading but he shouldn\u2019t clue us in. Morgan Freeman, he is not. Mr. Quaid is Clay Hammond, a well-known writer who, in front of many admirers, is presenting passages from his latest book entitled \u201cThe Words\u201d. The book is about a struggling would-be writer named Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) who has the desire but not the skill. After a couple years of focusing on his craft with nothing to show for it, he gives up: Gets the steady job and marries his sweetheart, Dora (Zoe Saldana). While on their honeymoon, Rory purchases an old leather satchel that contains a withered and forgotten manuscript. Upon reading these yellowed pages, Rory decides it is a masterful work of art and he must present it to the world as his own.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The book is supposed to be near perfection but as the camera pans across the written page, nothing comes across as particularly well written or impressive. Parts of the story are revealed but it is clich\u00e9d and sub-standard fare. This bleeds into Quaid\u2019s narration. His words aren\u2019t very lyrical and do not sound like as if they would be found in a novel. It sounds more like the written direction found in a script.<\/strong>
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\nOnce The Old Man (Jeremy Irons) appears to take credit for the lost book it is very hard to care about the outcome. Nothing is heightened and the conflict feels very forced. Rory and Old Man meet in a park for the first time and a huge chunk of the film is spent sitting at a bench as Old Man spews his story. Too much talking and the three tiered story becomes bothersome. To put it very bluntly, I was bored. Simply bored even though the film lasts just north of 90 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Words\u201d was written and directed by two newbies to the director\u2019s chair, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal.\u00a0 The duo are best known for coming up with the story for \u201cTron:Legacy\u201d. The story, not the script. Coincidence? Because \u201cThe Words\u201d makes it seem as if they are better at coming up with the idea than actually fleshing out said idea. The film, with three parallel plots, feels disjointed and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if each man helmed the separate segments and then tried to glue them together. \u201cThe Words\u201d may have looked good on paper but the realization of those words lost something in the translation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The straight and easy on this one:\u00a0 \u201cThe Words\u201d is about a man who narrates to us excerpts from \u00a0his book about a man who published a book that he didn\u2019t write. The actual author of the plagiarized book shows up and then narrates to the thieving man his own story about how and why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3395,10604,22661,24783],"class_list":["post-3734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-bradley-cooper","tag-jeremy-irons","tag-the-words-movie-review","tag-zoe-saldana"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}