The Words

The Words: I’m OK with a film telling a story within a story. This is one of those movies where a narrator in the present day reads from a book and we see his story play out, with occasional revisits to the narrator and whatever they have going on in their life. The Princess Bride totally rocked this format. Again, I’m OK with this. But when you go to a story within a story within a story … well, you start to lose me. Dennis Quaid plays an author reading from his book, and Bradley Cooper plays the subject of that book in a separate storyline that includes a character played by Jeremy Irons. Then, the Jeremy Irons character tells a story and the film goes into yet another time period and storyline. It’s a few levels too many, with the Quaid character proving completely unnecessary. Irons does good work here, while Cooper tries a little too hard. Your eyes will glaze over around the midway point.