The Words

Overview

The Words, a story within a story within a story, hinges on a moment in time that changes the lives of its protagonists and connects them across time.

The three stories that comprise the film are as follows: Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid), a well-known author, reads from his new book, The Words, to an admiring New York audience. The book is about a young aspiring writer, Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), who, not for lack of talent, struggles to make it in the literary world — that is, until he finds a manuscript in an old briefcase bought for him in Paris by his new wife, Dora (Zoe Saldana).

Back in New York after their honeymoon, Jansen makes the discovery and retypes the manuscript in one feverish night, not with the intention to steal it but because he wants to feel what it is like to write something so brilliant, something he, in reality, couldn't write. But the temptation overwhelms him after Dora reads the retyped manuscript and tells him how proud she is.

The story is about a young American man (Ben Barnes) who settles in Paris after having met the love of his life there during the war. After experiencing tragedy, he too writes feverishly over a few days, completing a book about his life — about love, escape, and devastating loss. Much like how Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, lost a manuscript of his on a train, the young man's wife loses his. And so he and Rory are tethered.

Rory's life spirals out of control after he meets 'The Old Man', about whom I will reveal little here, and the pleasures of fame and fortune are drowned by the consequences of stealing another man's words.

The Words is an interesting, if flawed, meditation on truth and fiction and a lushly shot film.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gjmrDDD9o_k