Metascore

Generally unfavorable - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 21 Ratings

  • Starring: Bradley Cooper, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde, Zoe Saldana
  • Summary: 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. (CBS Film) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 30
  2. Negative: 9 out of 30
  1. Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    Sep 6, 2012
    75
    Amazingly, though, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, cowriters and codirectors of The Words, have the audacity - and the skill sets - to pull this all off. They wrest emotional truth out of hokum. They also wrest intelligent, nuanced performances from their cast.
  2. Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    Sep 7, 2012
    60
    The Words founders on a spurious dichotomy between love and art. Which is a pity, because the movie is smart and persuasive on the casually incremental way in which plagiarism becomes an option for people like Rory - and perhaps for anyone.
  3. Reviewed by: Jen Chaney
    Sep 6, 2012
    38
    A well-acted but narratively limp indie that's undermined by a failure to connect emotionally with its audience.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 11
  2. Negative: 2 out of 11
  1. A very greatly performed movie. Saldana acts on this one with finese and spectacle, yet the sudden and quickly short boredom the movie brings in the middle is not to be ignored, it costed it two less points. But apart from that, it's pretty cool. Expand
  2. “The Words” is a story about a writer( Clay played by Dennis Quaid) telling a story about a writer (Rory played by Bradley Cooper) who claimed a story as his own from another writer. (Jeremy Irons as The Old Man and Ben Barnes as The Young Man). It is not at all as complicated as it may sound as the screenwriters, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, both also directed, make the period changes, and which writer is center stage, basic and easy to understand. I am a sucker for a love story and the original story stolen is a love story (between The Young Man and Celia, played by Nora Amezeder) of the old fashioned Hollywood kind and the one that involves the audience most of all. Another love story between Rory and Dora (Zoe Saldana) is more modern and less touching. We can’t leave Clay out so Daniella (Olivia Wilde) is brought in for a reason so flimsy that it adds nothing to the picture. The love story that moves you takes place in the 1940s in Paris and is full of cliches but the audience falls for it just as it is easy to believe the book became a bestseller. The big news in the publishing world during the last decade have been about plagiarism or exaggerating an author’s story and “The Words” tries to be deep by asking can a man steal someone’s work and live with themselves? Another question in the movie is it about Clay’s life but one really doesn’t care that much about the answer. The acting by Irons, Quaid and Saldana lifts each scene they are in and the acting between Barnes and Arnezeder takes their love story to the main involvement of the movie. Ron Rifkin, Michael McKean and J. K. Simmons, along with most of the supporting cast, add a gloss that only professionals can bring to the screen. Both the screenplay and the directors don’t help Olivia Wilde and of the men Cooper gives the least interesting performance of the primary roles. “The Words” is a good love story but fails to present the dilemma of a plagiarist or a writer whether the latter is a good or bad one. Expand
  3. Interesting premise: unpublished writer steals someone's novel, passes it off as his own, and gets away with it until the original author shows up. But giving this to us as a story within a story within a story makes for at least one story too many. Plus, there are elements in the film that simply defy credibility. The original author dashed off the novel in two weeks and the book made it into print without a rewrite? I don't think so. I also find it hard to believe that an author would spend what seems like two hours reading from his book to an audience without taking questions afterwards. Expand

See all 11 User Reviews

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