The Words

"There's more than one way to take a life."

2012 1h 42m EN

👍

6.7

SOLID

★6.7TMDB · 1,341

DramaThriller

Synopsis

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The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.

“There's more than one way to take a life.”

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Cast

Bradley Cooper
Rory Jansen
Zoe Saldaña
Dora Jansen
Jeremy Irons
The Old Man
Dennis Quaid
Clay Hammond
Olivia Wilde
Danielle
J.K. Simmons
Mr. Jansen
John Hannah
Richard Ford
Željko Ivanek
Joseph Cutler

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Lee Sternthal
Writers: Lee Sternthal, Brian Klugman
Languages: French, English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 14 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Lee Sternthal, shot by Antonio Calvache. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Marcelo Zarvos. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Leslie Jones shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldaña and Jeremy Irons carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "There's more than one way to take a life.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt1840417 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Lee Sternthal directs. Antonio Calvache behind the camera. Marcelo Zarvos scores. Leslie Jones cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in French, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 14 years ago.
2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: French, English.
3Directed by Lee Sternthal, shot by Antonio Calvache. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Marcelo Zarvos. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Leslie Jones shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldaña and Jeremy Irons carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "There's more than one way to take a life.".
8IMDB entry: tt1840417 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography: Antonio Calvache
Original score: Marcelo Zarvos
Editing: Leslie Jones
Production design: Michèle Laliberté
Costume design: Simonetta Mariano
Makeup / hair: Corald Giroux
Sound: David Bach
Stunt coordinator: Alexandre Cadieux
Runtime: 102 min · 1h 42m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $6,000,000
Box office: $13,231,461
Return: 221% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: The Words (2012)

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Community reviews

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tmdb280390232022-08-30
★ 1/10
The Words obliquely poses the question, what would have happened if someone had found the suitcase full of Papa Hem’s manuscripts that Hadley lost at the Gare de Lyon, and published the con-tent as his own work? Unfortunately, the answer is: not much. The problem, or one of them, is that the movie establishes too long a period of time between the loss of the manuscript — shortly after the end of WWI — and its publishing — presumably, the then-present day. As we all know, Hemingway eventually got over the incident and went on to become arguably the greatest author of the 20th century, essentially rendering the film’s premise moot. Co-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal’s script, however, conveniently has its homologous character, played by Ben Barnes as a Young Man and Jeremy Irons as an old nurseryman, give up writing forever following his soon-to-be ex-wife’s misplacement of his text. Needless to say, this is the least hemingwayesque thing to have done. Here’s another couple of problems. Wannabe writer Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) finds the briefcase in an antiques store in Paris, and buys it; lo and behold, not only is the manuscript still inside, un-touched — from the Gare de Lyon in the 1920s to an antiques shop in the 2010s, the briefcase sure-ly must have exchanged hands often (now, there’s you film), and yet it didn’t occur to anyone to rifle through it on the odd chance that it might contain something of value —, but Rory actually leaves it untouched ("He retyped every word as it was written on those pages. He didn't change a pe-riod, a comma, or even correct the spelling mistakes"), which doesn’t stop from going directly to the printing press. It’s at this point that one yearns for a movie like Genius, about famed editor Max Perkins — who worked with the likes of Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and Hem himself; even an Ernest Hemingway at the peak of his powers wouldn’t crap out a best-seller just like that, and it certainly wouldn’t hit bookstore shelves without undergoing extensive rewrites and editing work. But I digress. The Old Man (who, again, lacks the testicular fortitude of both Papa and the character to which his moniker is a reference) recognizes his work and confronts Rory — but don’t expect anything along the lines of Secret Window; the Old Man "just thought [Rory] should know the story behind these stories in case anyone was to ask." This comes right after the Old Man admits "I don't know how you did it. To be brutally honest, I don't care." But if he doesn’t care, and he clearly ne-ver did, why should we? Why even bother? The whole thing becomes even less urgen when we consider that the Old Man’s tale is only a story within Rory’s story, which in turn is a story within another story: the latest book by novelist Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid), who is discussing it with literary groupie Daniella (Olivia Wilde). Enough to make you wonder if there’s a point to any of this drivel, and if so, what the hell it is. PS. That Rory’s adventure is a fictional yarn — which might be based on events in Hammond’s life, and then again it might not — could explain that he and the Old Man live in a world where Hemingway existed (a copy of The Sun Also Rises makes a cameo, being read by the Young Man), but neither ever stops to consider for the briefest moment that their little mix-up is eerily similar to one of the best known anecdotes in Western literature.

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