The Words: Critic Reviews

A clever, entertaining yarn that doesn't bear close scrutiny.

Writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal chose to make The Words as bland and obvious as its title, wringing out any subtlety or artistry.

A well-acted but narratively limp indie that's undermined by a failure to connect emotionally with its audience.

I had planned to watch it, but there's nothing to see.

Witlessly titled and executed...

While it's no chore to watch so many appealing actors, it does feel like something of a waste to see them hemmed in by such flat material.

Even with one story line and time frame too many, the movie conjures a mean Faustian bargain and leaves a classic dramatic question hanging in its air: What would you do if faced with similar circumstances?

The problem is with the three nested stories themselves, which...are treacly variations on what a not-too-inventive Nicholas Sparks enthusiast might imagine to be Hemingway-esque.

I enjoyed the settings, the periods and the acting. I can't go so far as to say I cared about the story, particularly after it became clear that its structure was too clever by half.

Not bad.

The premise is ambitious -- if not a little hokey -- but the meager themes of ephemeral authorship and constructed realities aren't exactly revelatory.

The Words resonates - richly, remarkably.

It reinforces the misconception that great works arrive in a burst of creativity brought on by a tragic love affair, ideally in Paris.

This is a film that's thoughtful and elegant, with just enough loose strings to keep things intriguing.

A lush but fumbling literary melodrama outfitted with an attractive, generations-spanning cast and a puzzle box of three competing narratives.

A literary film that stands to work best for those who don't read.

Bradley Cooper's funniest movie since "The Hangover" - unfortunately, unintentionally this time ...

What do we learn? That it's bad to steal the work and identify of other people. For this we need an oh-so-serious movie?

Another actor might have made us feel something complicated for this troubled soul, but Cooper merely looks like the kind of guy who would steal another man's story.

This film's layered storytelling lacks the fluidity, grace, or good humour, to pull off its conceit.

It would have been more fun if I'd brought something to throw at the screen.

For the most part, it's an adequate romantic drama orbiting an intriguing moral dilemma, but the decision to use a three-layered approach to tell the story makes little sense from a dramatic or narrative perspective.

"The Words" leaves nothing to the imagination, smothering all these storylines in narration that spells out the actions we're seeing or emotions we could infer for ourselves.

As good looking but shallow as its multiple leading men.

It's a snooze.