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The Secret Life of Words (2006)
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins, Javier Camara, Eddie Marsan, Julie Christie
DVD Info
Release:
Aug 5, 2007
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- Snap Case
- Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
- Single Side - Dual Layer
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - English
- Subtitles - English (SDH), French, Spanish - Optional
Reviews
Can't resist the meaningful political backstory that will transform her characters into symbols--that is, into ventriloquist dummies rattling off humdrum rhetoric.
The film succeeds mainly as a story of the connective, regenerative tissue between words and silence on the level strength of its listeners.
Coixet's screenplay may be a little slow in spots and someof the supporting characters are not very well drawn, but the spotlight is on the two leads, and both Robbins and Polley come through. There's some twee voiceover that mars the film's beginning and
The claustrophobic and artificial atmosphere of the setting is unfortunately matched by the equally artificial drama.
Out in the north sea--no harbor for pain both physical and psychological--except what contact with the right human being may provide in the way of a cure.
What pleasure there is to be wrung from the exceptionally banal The Secret Life of Words lies in the harsh, unforgiving beauty (lyrically shot by Jean-Claude Larrieu) and wonderfully strange social life of the isolated rig.
Making it work onscreen requires a Herculean effort from the actors, a task to which Polley and Robbins -- as well as their supporting cast -- are more than adequately suited.
This thing is very, very deep. So deep in fact that getting the bends is a distinct possibility.
There may be no young actress today better at embodying a blend of wounded innocence and stoic pride than Sarah Polley. In The Secret Life of Words, she has a part worthy of her gifts.
Though I continue to have strong reservations about the stylistic abstractions in Ms. Coixet’s narrative, the performances given by Ms. Polley, Mr. Robbins and Ms. Christie take me a long way in accepting and recommending the whole package.
Director Isabel Croixet creates an intriguing, enclosed world aboard the ship
Meditative, slow-paced examination of how post-traumatic stress syndrome affects two troubled people who connect on a windswept oil rig in the Irish Sea.
Like Ceylan -- like many a fine director -- Coixet has made her film less as a drama than as the traversal of a state of mind, a mood.
In due course skeletons will march out of closets, but the movie yields up its secrets with slow reluctance.
A series of conversations that are sometimes clever and sometimes feel like screenwriting exercises about the details of life, but are always well acted.
Far from feeling that we've been hoodwinked into watching a film with a strong social message, we can only marvel at how eloquently and incontrovertibly it states its case.
Sarah Polley is such a wonderful actress, it's a shame she's not a bigger star.
Given the physical limitations of their characters, Polley and Robbins give remarkably compelling performances, and though the resolution of their slowly evolving relationship is a bit too pat, it is one you won't soon forget.
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