The Words **

How do you make a movie about the power of the written word? There is something contradictory about using a visual medium to tell a story about writing, and the results, as here, are often disappointing. The device of having an author read his story about an author who takes someone else's story, and then learns the story inside the story, while as old as Scheherazade, sets up an interesting frame. Writer/director Brian Klugman does a fine job keeping the stories straight, differentiating the present, with its famous author (Dennis Quaid), the fictional present about the fictional author (Bradley Cooper), and the fictional author's appropriation of the work of another author (Ben Barnes as the younger and Jeremy Irons as older incarnations).

Parallels to the story in the present-day author's life raise the question: How much of this author's fiction is fiction, and how much is self-revelation? It's a conundrum better suited to a short story than a movie, I think. The assumption in the movie seems to be that authors are no more distinguishable than, say, movie directors; that creators and stylists can follow towering works of genius with mediocre pablum in a completely different voice and not be found out. It's an idea that doesn't hold up for a feature-length movie.

As a showcase for Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana, however, "The Words" is a success. Besides being an extraordinarily good-looking couple, they deliver convincing performances that are on a caliber with the veterans Quaid and Irons. From an acting standpoint, this is a fine way to spend an afternoon.