The Secret Life of Words (2005)

Director:

Isabel Coixet

Writer:

Isabel Coixet (writer)

Release Date:

21 October 2005 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A hearing impaired factory worker gives up her first holiday in years and instead travels out to an oil rig, where she cares for a man suffering from severe burns.

Plot Keywords:

Oil Rig | Burn | Nurse | Doctor | Nurse Patient Relationship

Awards:

22 wins & 14 nominations

Cast

Sarah Polley	...	Hanna
Tim Robbins	...	Josef
Sverre Anker Ousdal	...	Dimitri (as Sverre Ousdal)
Javier Cámara	...	Simon
Danny Cunningham	...	Scott
Dean Lennox Kelly	...	Liam (as Dean Lenox Kelly)
Daniel Mays	...	Martin
Emmanuel Idowu	...	Abdul
Eddie Marsan	...	Victor
Steven Mackintosh	...	Doctor Sulitzer
Julie Christie	...	Inge
Reg Wilson	...	Factory Manager
Leonor Watling	...	Josef's friend's wife
Daphne Brown	...	Old Lady on Bus
Muriel Hobson	...	Old Lady on Bus

Also Known As:

The Secret Life of Words (International: English title) (UK) (USA)
La vida secreta de las palabras (Spain)
La vida secreta de les paraules (Spain: Catalan title)

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

English | Danish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Spain:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Netherlands:MG6 | Singapore:NC-16 | Hungary:16 | Germany:6 | Malaysia:U | Argentina:13 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:Btl | Australia:M | South Africa:13L

Filming Locations:

Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK

Company:

El Deseo S.A.

Trivia:

The story about a nurse named Cora that Josef tells to Hanna is a short-story named "La señorita Cora" by argentinean writer Julio Cortázar from his book "Todos los fuegos el fuego".

Goofs:

Plot holes: If an employee requires medical treatment on an off-shore installation he would immediately be evacuated off.

Quotes:

Josef: I thought um, you and I, maybe we could go away somewhere. Together. One of these days. Today. Right now. Come with me.
Hanna: No, I don't think that's going to be possible.
Josef: Why not?
Hanna: Um, because I think that if we go away to someplace together, I'm afraid that, ah, one day, maybe not today, maybe, maybe not tomorrow either, but one day suddenly, I may begin to cry and cry so very much that nothing or nobody can stop me and the tears will fill the room and I won't be able to breath and I will pull you down with me and we'll both drown.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Features Kickboxer (1989)

Soundtrack:

Forever Now and Then

Touching and Heartbreaking

In Ireland, the introspective deaf worker Hanna (Sarah Polley) is forced to take vacations by her boss after four years service in a factory. She travels, but when she overhears a phone conversation in a restaurant, she offers to nurse a burned worker with fractures and temporarily blind in a decommissioned oil rig. Joseph (Tim Robbins) seriously wounded after risking his life to rescue a colleague that committed suicide jumping in a fire and need to stay for a while in the platform to stabilize his health condition. Hanna is a lonely woman, with the paranoid behavior of eating white rice, chicken nuggets and apple everyday and never repeating the soap, and she slowly interacts with the few workers first, opening her heart to Joseph later and disclosing her traumatic experience in her old country.

"The Secret Life of Words" is a touching and heartbreaking romance, with an awesome screenplay and wonderful performances of Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins. The dramatic story develops perfectly the characters and in spite of the happy-end, it is never corny. The sensitive direction of Isabel Coixet, from the stunning "My Life Without Me" with the same Sarah Polley, is top-notch again. The process of re-socialization of Hanna, who was dead inside and reborn after meeting Joseph, is intense. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Vida Secreta das Palavras" ("The Secret Life of Words")