In due course skeletons will march out of closets, but the movie yields up its secrets with slow reluctance.
The Secret Life of Words
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Spain, Ireland · 2005
1h 52m
Director Isabel Coixet
Starring Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins, Javier Cámara, Danny Cunningham
Genre Romance, Drama
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
A tantalizing and beautiful picture made with tremendous integrity, and anchored by two marvelous performances, Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words still, somehow, doesn't quite work.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
Given the physical limitations of their characters, Polley and Robbins give remarkably compelling performances, and though the resolution of their slowly evolving relationship is a bit too pat, it is one you won't soon forget.
Sarah Polley gives a wonderfully searching performance, as a woman in a state of extreme isolation, in The Secret Life of Words, a compellingly claustrophobic drama set mostly aboard an oil rig.
Carries an important and timely reminder about the fate of torture victims, so deftly wrapped within a touching and beautifully acted melodrama that the result is the furthest thing from a didactic message movie.
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
Like Ceylan--like many a fine director--Coixet has made her film less as a drama than as the traversal of a state of mind, a mood.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The exquisitely coordinated performances elicit an empathy as powerful as anything I can remember feeling in a recent film.
Yes, The Secret Life of Words owes much to Lars von Trier's 1999 "Breaking the Waves." But Coixet's riff stands on its own thanks to thoughtful performances by Polley and Robbins.
Users who liked this film also liked
My Life Without Me
What would you do if you had two months left to live?
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain, Canada • 2003
- Director Isabel Coixet
- Cast Sarah Polley, Amanda Plummer, Scott Speedman, Mark Ruffalo, Leonor Watling, Debbie Harry
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Billy Elliot
A coal miner's eleven-year-old son abandons his boxing training to begin ballet classes.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom, France • 2000
- Director Stephen Daldry
- Cast Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Jean Heywood, Jamie Draven, Gary Lewis, Stephen Mangan
- Genre Drama, Comedy, Music
- Available on Peacock, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Spectrum On Demand
From Russia with Love
The world's masters of murder pull out all the stops to destroy Agent 007!
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom, United States • 1963
- Director Terence Young
- Cast Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell
- Genre Action, Adventure, Thriller
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube
The Third Man
Hunted by men ... Sought by WOMEN!
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom • 1949
- Director Carol Reed
- Cast Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Paul Hörbiger
- Genre Thriller, Mystery
- Available on TCM, IndieFlix, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, AMC on Demand, Tubi TV
Waltz with Bashir
(Vals Im Bashir)
When a young soldier has trouble accessing memories of a massacre, conversations with others help piece his memories together.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Israel, France, Germany • 2008
- Director Ari Folman
- Cast Ari Folman, Ron Ben-Yishai, Dror Harazi, Ronny Dayag
- Genre Animation, Documentary, Drama, War
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube
Chef's Special
(Fuera de carta)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain • 2008
- Director Nacho G. Velilla
- Cast Javier Cámara, Lola Dueñas, Fernando Tejero, Benjamín Vicuña, Luis Varela, Chus Lampreave
- Genre Comedy
- Available on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Tubi TV
Splice
Science's newest miracle...is a mistake.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Canada, France, United States • 2009
- Director Vincenzo Natali
- Cast Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac, David Hewlett, Abigail Chu, Stephanie Baird
- Genre Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
- Available on Cinemax Amazon Channel, Max, Cinemax Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Spectrum On Demand
The Horse's Mouth
Smart Alec ... Sheer madness and all Guinness! The man's a genius ...
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom • 1958
- Director Ronald Neame
- Cast Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Renée Houston, Mike Morgan, Robert Coote, Michael Gough
- Genre Comedy
- Available on Criterion Channel, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Plex, Plex Channel
Wrath of the Titans
Feel the Wrath
- ✭ ✭
- Spain, United States • 2012
- Director Jonathan Liebesman
- Cast Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy, Edgar Ramírez
- Genre Fantasy, Adventure
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Vudu, AMC on Demand
Pompeii
No warning. No escape.
- ✭ ✭
- Canada, Germany, United States • 2014
- Director Paul W. S. Anderson
- Cast Kit Harington, Emily Browning, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jared Harris
- Genre Action, Adventure, Drama, History, Romance
- Available on MGM Plus, fuboTV, Epix Amazon Channel, MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Vudu, AMC on Demand
Things I Never Told You
(Cosas que nunca te dije)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain, United States • 1996
- Director Isabel Coixet
- Cast Lili Taylor, Andrew McCarthy, Debi Mazar, Alexis Arquette, Leslie Mann, Richard Edson
- Genre Comedy, Romance
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Blancanieves
Based on Snow White, this adaptation centers on a female bullfighter.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain, Belgium, France • 2012
- Director Pablo Berger
- Cast Maribel Verdú, Macarena García, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Ángela Molina, Inma Cuesta, Sofía Oria
- Genre Drama, Fantasy
- Available on Cohen Media Amazon Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Tubi TV, Kanopy
Another Me
She’s watching. She’s waiting. She wants you life.
- United Kingdom, Spain • 2013
- Director Isabel Coixet
- Cast Sophie Turner, Claire Forlani, Rhys Ifans, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ivana Baquero, Gregg Sulkin
- Genre Thriller, Mystery, Horror, Drama
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, AMC on Demand
Julieta
This is my life --- it is for you.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain • 2016
- Director Pedro Almodóvar
- Cast Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Darío Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Starz Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, Spectrum On Demand
Son of Saul
(Saul fia)
Humanity isn't something you can take away.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Hungary • 2015
- Director László Nemes
- Cast Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Sándor Zsótér
- Genre Drama, Thriller, War
- Available on Starz Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube
Everybody Knows
(Todos lo saben)
Laura returns to her small Spanish for her sister's wedding, but an explosive crisis threatens to expose the family’s hidden past.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain, France, Italy • 2018
- Director Asghar Farhadi
- Cast Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín, Bárbara Lennie, Inma Cuesta, Elvira Mínguez
- Genre Drama
- Available on FilmBox+, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube