An Abridgement of The Words

WARNING: I am really bad at writing movie synopsis, my choices of vocabulary is considered poor, i often focus too much on one character's charm and i am easily bewildered by cliffhangers, and i am even far from being an amateur writer, i'm just a girl trying to express her love for dramatic movies and hot guys in it that leads me to think far more deeper about life because wretched things do happen to beautiful people that seemed so untouched. So don't say i didn't warn ya by the time you've reached the end of this post and thought "Mehh, i've just wasted a fraction of my time reading this piece of crap."

But really, enjoy anyways :D

The Words tells a story about a celebrated writer, Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) reciting his book, The Words in his public reading event in front of the media. His book was based on a writer who had stolen a story from an old man that had occurred during the World War II. In the audience, a young fresh graduate that starves for more from Clay as she is very fascinated by the book. With her devious persuasion, Daniella (Olivia Wilde) managed to grab Clay's attention and even invited her to his apartment to tell more about his book.

The book tells of a aspiring writer Rory Jensen (Bradley Cooper) who works at a mail supervisor and in hopes of his book being published but luck has not been on his side. Together, Rory and his wife, Dora (Zoe Saldana) went to Paris for their honeymoon. They visited an old vintage shop that is filled with knickknacks and trinkets, whilst browsing the store, Rory discovered a vintage messenger bag, which Dora later on catches him gazing at the beautiful bag and decided to but it for him as a wedding gift. Later on, inside the bag, Rory discovers the was a hidden stack of papers inside it and it looked very old and was typed using a type writer, it was a story of a young man that fell in love with a french woman and how their romance started off as a beautiful fairytale and ended with a tragedy.

Rory paraphrased the story and Dora accidentally read it on his computer and thought it was Rory's. With the joyful look on Dora's face, Rory claimed that it was his and he soon handed it to publishers and they published it. With the mixture feeling of pleasure and guilt, either ways he was pleased by the amount success and recognition he had.

One day, he was going to a park and an old man followed his footsteps and sat at a bench next to his. At first, the old man gave complements for Rory's book and offered him a story that might tell on what happens after the man had split with his wife (in the book).

Ben Barnes plays a young man being sent to Paris during the World War II, he was a vacuous boy that knew less of what goes around the world he lived in. A dear friend of his offered him a book and it opened his eyes and gave him the opportunities to see far beyond life and it was the start of his love for writing. In Paris, he fell in love with a French waitress named, Celia (Nora Arnezeder). It was love at first sight, they spent every single day together and learn their differences, it was like seeing the perfect love story come to life. After the war had ended, the young man was forced to go back to his hometown, which meant he must leave Celia behind. But the love did not end there, after he got back, the young man felt empty and different with himself, he still longs to be together with his dear Celia. The young man decides he would go back to Paris and be with his significant other. After they reunited, the married after two weeks he had gone back to her and soon, they had a baby together.

Life was going smooth for them and the young man had started working as a journalist. Suddenly, their child was sick and both of them worried for their child's medical condition and unfortunately, they had lost their child as their child could not fight with the sickness she was suffering from. Devastated by the reality they had faced, something changed in Celia. She no longer puts a beautiful smile on her face, all that could be seen from her eyes were bitter memories, and it worries the young man.

They had a fight because the young man had done all that he could for bringing back happiness into Celia's life but all she feels is nothing. The young man went out for a late night walk and came back shortly afterwards, when he got back, all he could find was a piece of letter hand-written from Celia saying that she wants to stay in her hometown for a bit and be with her mother. The young man collapsed into the ground and starts to lose himself. In his range or anger, he accidentally smashed his typewriter to the ground. After he felt calmer, he approached the typewriter and picked it back up. He then took a paper and began writing. For several days and nights have flown by, the young man did not sleep nor eat. His eyes were fixed to each letter he wrote and began pouring himself to it.

Once finished, he came to Celia's hometown to visit her and to give her his story inside his usual messenger bag. In hopes of Celia joining him back to come back home, Celia rejected the offer but she kept the story. Celia read the story in a single night and cried when she finished. She then decided it was time to go back to the young man. Celia packed all of her stuffs and the young man's bag.

Reunited, the young man welcomed his wife back home with open arms. By the time they have reached home, the young man asks whether she has read the book or not, for some reason Celia lied, an expression of disappointment cast upon the young man's face. When he asked to see his story again, Celia could not find the bag in her suitcase. Frustrated, the young man searched all over her things and even scattered around the train station asking countless people on where is his bag.

The story of the old man ends there and Rory felt uncomfortable, he looked like in any moment he was ready to escape from that moment as he come to realise that he had stolen this man's life story. Rory was tempted to tell the truth to the public for he cannot bare the old man's agony for the loss of his child and from the separation of his wife. Rory confessed to his wife that the story was not his and he also told the publisher that the story was not his creation. Rory was now standing before a podium and about t uncover the truth, he began his words slowly but at the end, he lied. He claimed the book was based on his creativity. Several days afterwards, the old man died and Rory came to his cemetery and buried the original papers alongside the dead body of the old man. Clay pauses his story there but Daniella demanded more. Clay suddenly became suspicious of Daniella's interest in the story and began asking question why is she so keen to hear more.

Daniella refused to believe the truth that the story ended unfair. Clay asked how would the story end if it was hers to finished it, she told that Rory would have been fucked up, Rory would have lost everything, his wife, his job, his everything. Clay did not know what to talk back as his mouth was left the hanging, Daniella on the other hand, came upon the idea that, maybe this is based on a real story, either Rory was Clay's stage name or maybe it is a fictional after all.

There is one quote that came out of Clay's mouth that caught my attention,

"At some point, you have to choose between life and fiction. The two are very close, but they never actually touch."

That quote also inspired me to write this next post after this one on how this movie has touched me on so many different degree of angles on how i see life, and i would also like to thank Ben Barnes's charming facial feature that led me to his imdb profile to see what movie he had played in, which led me to watching The Words until 2 AM and it was a school night! but nonetheless no regrets here! The movie was very good and despite some movie critics proclaims that the ending slipped the chance of making this movie as one of the best movie of 2012, i still think it is a well written movie with brilliant actors that portrayed each character very memorable.

xoxo,

Gia