THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Strand Releasing
Grade: B
Directed by: Isabel Coixet
Written By: Isabel Coixet
Cast: Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins, Javier Camara, Sverre Anker
Ousdal, Eddie Marsan
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 12/4/06
Opens: December 15, 2006

We all know a few people who are so painfully shy that they
withdraw completely from social contacts. At work, they sit
alone at the lunch tables and seem not to be self-conscious
about that. They do not talk to anyone, but might answer softly
when spoken to, eyes down. There are probably many causes
for extreme shyness, even a genetic component which could
account for timidity in young children. However there are some
who, for events that occur during their lives, turn inward, not
revealing to anyone what those experiences might be for fear of
bursting into tears yet again.

Hanna (Sarah Polley) is such a person, someone who works in
an unnamed factory somewhere in Europe (we find out where in
the concluding moments), who turns off her large, behind-the-
ear hearing aid when she feels like tuning the world out, sits
alone at lunch, and is anxious when called into her boss's office,
expecting to be sacked. She is told instead that her refusal to
take a single vacation or even a day off in four years is making
her co-workers edgy. She is ordered to take a month, her
supervisor suggesting a place with palm trees, but true to her
self-destructive nature goes with (are you ready for this?)
Northern Ireland. There she volunteers as a nurse on an oil rig
in the Irish Sea where an explosion has left Josef (Tim Robbins)
severely burned and temporarily blinded.

Here is an ideal situation for a person such as Hanna gradually
to peel layers of her personality, confiding in a stranger who
does not see her and whom she expects never to see again
after treating him. Most of Isabel Coixet's picture is filmed by
Jean Claude Larrieu in Spain and the UK, generally indoor
scenes including a large, impersonal factory floor and the
interior of an oil rig in the middle of nowhere, reachable only by
helicopter. Her patient, Josef, begins to chat her up in the usual
way that men do–by little humorous, preferably off-color
comments such as "Do you prefer men who are circumcised?"
to which he receives no reply--then revealing more about
himself such as his terror when he, a non-swimmer was thrown
into the water. This prompts Hanna finally to unfold her own
past, including the key to her extreme reticence.

Love is blind, as they say, the expression leaping from the
metaphorical to the literal as volunteer nurse and physically
pained patient confide in each other. The director, who has
herself had experience on an oil rig, opens up the film by
showing characters of diverse nationalities, dissing the gourmet
Spanish chef Simon (Javier Camara), shouting that they want
just burgers or steak with fried onions instead of the various
national dishes that he lovingly prepares and which only Hanna
appreciates.

Since this is virtually a chamber piece, the story of two people
learning to trust each other, we relish Hanna's first smile and the
first time she grasps her patient's hand. Gradually other
mysteries are revealed, such as her calls to one Inge (Julie
Christie) in Copenhagen in which Hanna regularly says not a
word.

Supporting players include a trumpeting goose named Lisa,
serving as a mascot but who, we suspect, has a short life
expectancy on the rig. A kind-of supporting player is the
narrator, an invisible presence that frames the movie with a
childish voice, a character that could have easily been excised.
This is a sincere, slow-moving piece about people tentatively
reaching out when each is likely to have earlier thought, "Is this
all there is?"

Not Rated. 115 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online