Synopsis
An art instructor and an English teacher form a rivalry that ends up with a competition at their school in which students decide whether words or pictures are more important.
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Cast
- Clive OwenJack Marcus
- Juliette BinocheDina Delsanto
- Bruce DavisonWalt
- Adam DiMarcoSwint
- Valerie TianEmily
- Navid NegahbanRashid
- Amy BrennemanElspeth
- Keegan Connor TracyEllen
- Andrew McIlroyRoy Loden
- Tanaya BeattyTammy
Recommendations
- 58
Entertainment Weekly
It’s a rom-com setup lamer than anything in the Barrymore-Sandler canon, but Binoche and Owen tackle it like high drama and eke out a few sweet moments. - 50
Village Voice
Owen and Binoche's vigorous, battle-scarred performances, prop up Words and Pictures even when its plotting resorts to unbelievable devices. - 50
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Words and Pictures is the cloying title of a cloying little comedy made by talented people who, not that long ago, deserved better than this, and knew it. - 50
The A.V. Club
Words And Pictures is supposed to be divided, as equally as its title, between these two characters. But Owen’s performance as a man who values his own faux-sophistication even as he goes to seed overpowers Binoche, leaving the movie lopsided. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
Audiences will walk away thinking, "What was that?" But they will walk away thinking. - 40
The Dissolve
Schepisi does nothing inventive visually, and the stars can’t find the humanity beneath Di Pego’s dialogue, generate much romantic chemistry, or make their personal struggles feel like burdens instead of scripted complications they’re destined to overcome before the credits roll. - 40
New York Daily News
Words and Pictures doesn’t get the dunce-cap award, but it does lose points for feeling phony and contrived — especially during the moments when it appears overly proud of what it is. - 38
Slant Magazine
At least the irony with which this transparently written and dispassionately aestheticized film so demagogically argues for the value of words and pictures is brutally convincing.
