Isabel Coixet's "The Secret Life of Words" stars Sarah Polley as a withdrawn, scarred, hearing impaired factory worker who volunteers to work on an oil rig. There she takes care of a character played by Tim Robbins, who is suffering from severe burns and temporary blindness.The film overindulges in monologues, and is too reminiscent of Oscar-baiting fare like "Sophie's Choice" and "The English Patient", but Polley turns in another excellent performance. She seems to specialise in giving good performances in films which should be better.The idea of a lonely girl on an oil-rig in the middle of the ocean is very good, and lends itself to all kinds of interesting possibilities, but Coixet can't milk these possibilities. Too often her film drifts toward conventional melodrama and familiar plot points. Still, the film boasts some fine ambiance, another raw, generous performance by Polley, and a likable cast of characters, all of whom turn to isolation and self-imposed exile as a means of shielding themselves from pain and trauma. One interesting subplot deals with an environmentalist who essentially cares so much that the world itself seems to have forced him out, turning him into a shipwrecked non citizen.7.9/10 – Wastes a good premise. This story could have been taken down a range of far more interesting avenues. Worth one viewing.

This is the second Tim Robbins film I saw so far as I post this comment. There are still a load of superb films his career had laid for and I'm looking forward to it, especially Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River. I've haven't imagined yet Tim Robbins character could go deeper in an opposite sex relationship, whose history is so much saddening one can imagine. I can't judge Sarah Polley character's repetitive behavior and unremitting silence could hold for. There might be inconceivable misfortunes or harrowing experiences her character had endured to keep her silence seem unbreakable, her trust inaccessible, she's just strangely introvert and seem to shut down everything around her for years. It's pretty tough for viewers to put themselves in the shoes of Sarah's character. But I'm astounded as how hurtful indeed the truer repercussions of her agonizing past could have done in her present life. When I knew about her trauma there is so much of an ordeal a woman could bear than being plain dead a long time ago. It caught me off guard indeed while watching the film. Prejudging wouldn't be a cool idea. The words and sentences are playful throughout the film. It's the interesting part because many viewers had different views how to put the words Tim and Sarah's characters are telling. Even the people around give puzzling ideas how they convey their thoughts. I guess the film's title paid well in this manner.Going to Tim Robbins. He's totally cool here from the last time I saw him in Jacob's Ladder. But his character's ordeal is nowhere cool than miserable. I'm impressed how they manage to link the characters and made relationship seem improbable to at least possible. It worked. Though how saddening the truth had been it's something that could be used to discover something else that might save you. This film made it possible.

As Jane Campion, Susanne Bier, Lynne Ramsay and Sally Potter, Spanish screenwriter and director Isabel Coixet who made quite an impression with "My Life Without Me" (2003) has a subtle, lyrical and ravishingly beautiful way of depicting human relations and emotions, which shines through in this heartfelt and universally appealing story about Hanna, a lonely factory worker in Northern Ireland who after being instructed to take a holiday by her boss returns to her lonely life at the coast where she realizes that a holiday is the last thing she wants and ends up taking a job as a nurse at an oil rig.Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet's fifth feature film is mostly set on a distant oil rig and centres on the main character's evolving relationship with her patient named Josef and her meeting with seven men who share her need for solitude and privacy. The role of Hanna is portrayed by Sarah Polley, a Canadian actress with a great gift for interpreting internal and low-keyed characters with great conviction, "The Sweet Hereafter" (1997) being one of them, and here she practically conveys the soul of the film through her intuitive and quiet though expressive performance, which transcends in the scene where she confides to her patient, gracefully acted by American actor and director Tim Robbins."The Secret Life of Words" is a well-paced study of character with fragments of poetry that has lively visuals, atmospheric music and many colorful characters, and which is observantly written and gently filmed by Isabel Coixet. It is a memorable movie experience which through it's depiction of people who turn to their loneliness in order to regain their security succeeds to affirm new perspectives on life.

I bought this movie without knowing a nickel about it and this makes a good analogy of the film itself. A road you know its potholes and you know they will keep getting larger without the right care, and these potholes will keep you alert and away from distractions. The film manages to maintain traffic working.Definitely not for all tastes, but, engaging and a heartbreaking tale of suffering and nonetheless surviving through deep pain.I admire Sarah Polley for her talent as an actress and as a writer. She is almost perfect in the role of Hannah. Everything makes sense! The powerful waves that hit the oil platform creates the ambiguous sense where people seem forgotten by everyone else and become reflective about themselves taking different directions and reasons inside their minds for everything they do and believe is out of reach mostly.Beautiful poetic harsh thrust into the heart of reality of traveling lost souls!