Movie and DVD Guide

Find Movies and Tickets

Choose Your Movie

All movies
or
The Secret Life of Words (2002) Can a single scene save a movie? An hour and 20 minutes into The Secret Life of Words , Sarah Polley delivers a halting, evocative… Unrated PT115M Drama Sarah Polley Tim Robbins Javier Camara Strand Releasing
Movie Review

The Secret Life of Words (2002)

MPAA Rating: Unrated
Reviewed by Gregory Kirschling | Dec 13, 2006

Find theaters showing The Secret Life of Words in your area

LIFE LINES A terrific monologue from Polley (pictured with Robbins) almost makes this film a Secret worth knowing
LIFE LINES A terrific monologue from Polley (pictured with Robbins) almost makes this film a Secret worth knowing
EW's GRADE
B-

Details Limited Release: Dec 14, 2002; Rated: Unrated; Length: 115 Minutes; Genre: Drama; With: Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins; Distributor: Strand Releasing

Can a single scene save a movie? An hour and 20 minutes into The Secret Life of Words, Sarah Polley delivers a halting, evocative 10-minute monologue that finally unlocks the mystery behind her guarded character, a deaf, indeterminately accented nurse caring for a burn victim (Tim Robbins) on a deep-sea oil rig. Polley is mesmerizing as she raises the movie's stakes, but it comes too late. The sequence is the only highlight of an opaque film that waits too long to tell us why we should care.

Originally posted Dec 13, 2006 Published in issue #912 Dec 22, 2006 Order article reprints