The format of the movie, The Words, makes it intriguing, if not confusing at times. This is a story within a story, within a third story. It is also the title of a best-selling book written by an author, in obvious mid-life crisis, played by Dennis Quaid. Quaid examines his own ethical decisions through the life of his main character played by Bradley Cooper.
Cooper’s character, a struggling author, finds a manuscript apparently written by another unknown author of yet another decade. Keeping all the authors and their “words” straight proves to be a little daunting, but definitely engaging. Each of the authors “must choose between life and fiction,” as do all of us. The happy endings, good intentions, and excusable wrong choices we make become the fiction we write into our own stories.
It’s all too easy to choose the fantasy we’ve created over the real-life people who’ve been put into our lives —“loving ‘the words’ more than the one who inspired them” as Quaid comments. What Cooper’s character does when his choice is discovered is the question that underlies the movie, The Words. (Rated PG-13 for its own words.)
I loved this movie with its interwoven, complicated plots and the believable characters who made me feel a part of the story. I wondered what I would have done. Would I have chosen fiction or real life? Unlike the third author played by Jerome Irons who laments, “Everyone makes choices in their lives and there’s no one to help you live with the consequences,” I know Someone who will help me live with the consequences of my bad choices, if I’ll let Him.
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