Synopsis
A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.
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Cast
- Sarah PolleyHanna
- Tim RobbinsJosef
- Javier CámaraSimon
- Danny CunninghamScott
- Dean Lennox KellyLiam
- Daniel MaysMartin
- Eddie MarsanVictor
- Steven MackintoshDr. Sullitzer
- Julie ChristieInge
- Emmanuel IdowuAbdul
Recommendations
- 88
TV Guide Magazine
Carries an important and timely reminder about the fate of torture victims, so deftly wrapped within a touching and beautifully acted melodrama that the result is the furthest thing from a didactic message movie. - 80
The New Republic
Like Ceylan--like many a fine director--Coixet has made her film less as a drama than as the traversal of a state of mind, a mood. - 75
New York Post
Yes, The Secret Life of Words owes much to Lars von Trier's 1999 "Breaking the Waves." But Coixet's riff stands on its own thanks to thoughtful performances by Polley and Robbins. - 75
New York Daily News
Given the physical limitations of their characters, Polley and Robbins give remarkably compelling performances, and though the resolution of their slowly evolving relationship is a bit too pat, it is one you won't soon forget. - 70
Variety
Sarah Polley gives a wonderfully searching performance, as a woman in a state of extreme isolation, in The Secret Life of Words, a compellingly claustrophobic drama set mostly aboard an oil rig. - 70
Film Threat
A series of conversations that are sometimes clever and sometimes feel like screenwriting exercises about the details of life, but are always well acted. - 70
The New York Times
The exquisitely coordinated performances elicit an empathy as powerful as anything I can remember feeling in a recent film. - 67
Entertainment Weekly
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.
