Plot: What’s it about?
When one looks at the career or Bradley Cooper (which is certainly still ascending) certain movies come to mind. Yes, there’s the obligatory Hangover movies and to a lesser extent, Wedding Crashers, but he’s actually managed to put together a fairly impressive resume for an actor of his age. He’s done action, comedy and so with every actor trying to find their particular niche comes a movie like The Words. I don’t fancy myself a writer, per se. My vocabulary is limited by some means and excessive by others. I’ve always had this ability to ‘net it out’ as opposed try and dazzle those with my expertise with a thesaurus. But after writing movie reviews for nearly 15 years, I do have to agree that writer’s block is somewhat akin to the flu in that it just takes time and things come to pass. However with the ease of access of information via the internet, how easy is it to plagiarize? Answer: very easy. But morals get involved. This is the subject that The Words tries to tackle and they nearly succeed.
We meet Rory (Bradley Cooper), a young and enthusiastic writer who aims to change the world with his works. But as time passes, he finds that the once fresh ideas aren’t so fresh and finding that perfect subject isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He’s got a devoted (and beautiful) wife, Dora (Zoe Saldana) who supports him, but there’s still something missing. As fate would have it, he comes across an old manuscript in a briefcase purchased for him by Dora. As he devours the script, he begins to type it into his laptop where its noticed by more than one person. His agent loves it, it’s heralded as a masterpiece and all is well. Or is it? Naturally we can’t have a happy ending like this and so enters a stranger (Jeremy Irons) who serenades Rory with his tale. Surely Rory has come to a fork in the road and the movie begs the predictable question: what will he do?
The Words certainly has some moments that are genuinely interesting and others that aren’t so much. It’s not the most predictable movie out there, but I’d be lying if I said the ending surprised me. The ensemble cast certainly does a fine job with Cooper and Jeremy Irons delivering some top notch performances. A sub plot of the film involves Dennis Quaid and Oliva Wilde that seems somewhat out of place. Honestly, The Words will more likely cater to the writers and, to a lesser extent, the readers out there. It’s not got a lot of action, then again it’s not supposed to. Writer/Director Brian Klugman has scripted an interesting script and he and longtime friend, Bradley Cooper, certainly work well together. Ultimately it’s a good movie, but not something I’ll watch over and over.
Video: How does it look?
If you read the plot synopsis above you’ll recall that I’ve been doing these reviews for the better part of 15 years now and one of the more challenging aspects is to come up with new and inventive ways to describe how a movie looks. The Words comes to Blu-ray in a 1.85:1 AVC HD transfer that certainly looks the part, but the dismal interiors and muted tones seem to be a bit out of place. Detail is fairly impressive as we get plenty of shots of Cooper’s perpetual scruff, though the interior shots just seem a bit drab to me. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with this transfer in the least, it’s very indicative of Sony’s new to Blu-ray offerings, I just wasn’t blown away.
Audio: How does it sound?
Likewise the DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack isn’t anything that will challenge your speakers, though it’s a very nice, well-rounded track. Obviously with a title like The Words, the main portion of this will be relegated to dialogue and it is. We do get some ambient surround effects thrown in for good measure, but I just get the feeling that if this movie were made twenty years ago, it’d be presented in mono. I will say that Marcelo Zarvos’ score does have a few moments, though they’re few and far between. Set the bar a bit low here and you’ll fare a lot better.
Supplements: What are the extras?
The Words actually comes with a surprisingly decent amount of extras beginning with the extended cut of the film. Having never seen the theatrical cut, I don’t really know what was added. Still, it’s nic they included this on the Blu-ray. The standard-issue EPK “Unabriged: A Look Behind the Scenes of ‘The Words’” is just that. It’s an overview of the story with some promotional fluff thrown in for good measure. Another featurette tells of how the movie came to be (hint: Bradley Cooper), though it only runs two minutes. There are some trailers for other Sony movies thrown in for good measure. Moving onto the Blu-ray exclusives we find another featurette: “Clay and Daniell” which are classified as “in-depth character profiles” though they run only a minute. Uh yeah, ok. Lastly we get another one minute, yes one minute, featurette entitled “The Young man and Celia.”
