Spoken Word

Victor Nunez

2009

Synopsis

A San Francisco spoken word artist returns to New Mexico to be with his dying father, only to find he loses his "voice" as he is sucked back in to the dysfunctional life of drugs and violence he left behind.

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Recommendations

90
The New York Times
Strongly acted and beautifully photographed (by Virgil Mirano), Spoken Word is a quietly resonant family drama about the tug of old habits and the difficulties of escaping the past.
80
Variety
Spoken Word benefits from an improbably perfect storm of production circumstances: The muscular, balanced script, the brainchild of an unusual alliance between professional poet Joe Ray Sandoval and TV writer William T. Conway, consistently plays to Nunez's strengths.
80
Time Out
Filmmaker Victor Nunez pairs evocative locales--beatnik Bay Area, bucolic rural New Mexico--with fleeting asides of poetry (penned by the Santa Fe–based writer Joe Ray Sandoval); these meditative detours both elevate a routine story arc and tap into tangled, twisted familial roots.
75
Observer
The movie is about how he learns to show what's in his heart even when he can't find the spoken words to express his feelings aloud. Under the careful guidance of Mr. Nunez, Mr. Becker does both, in ways that reminded me of a Hispanic James Dean.
65
Movieline
Has just enough genuine warmth to compensate for the coolness you might feel toward its generic trappings.
50
Village Voice
Though crudely constructed (the lighting and framing are strictly soap opera), unevenly acted (Becker is a bundle of distracting tics), and bluntly scripted, the film does have an honest integrity--at least whenever Blades is onscreen.
50
The Hollywood Reporter
Spoken Word, which centers on the tense reunion between a recovering addict poet and his dying father, features more cliches than it can comfortably handle and is not helped by its grindingly slow pacing.
42
The A.V. Club
Apart from its title, there's very little poetic about Spoken Word.