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The Secret Life of Words (2005)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
21 October 2005 (Spain) morePlot:
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. full summary | full synopsisAwards:
21 wins & 14 nominations moreUser Comments:
Touching and Heartbreaking moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| 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 |
Additional Details
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)
La vida secreta de las palabras (Argentina) (International: Spanish title) [es]
A Vida Secreta das Palavras (Brazil) (festival title) [pt]
A szavak titkos élete (Hungary) [hu]
Das geheime Leben der Worte (Germany) [de]
I mystiki zoi ton lexeon (Greece) [el]
La vita segreta delle parole (Italy) [it]
The Secret Life of Words (France) [fr]
more
Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parentsRuntime:
115 minCountry:
SpainLanguage:
EnglishColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Dolby DigitalCertification:
Spain:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Netherlands:MG6 | Singapore:NC-16 | Hungary:16 | Germany:6 | Malaysia:U | Argentina:13 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:Btl | Australia:M | South Africa:13LFun Stuff
Trivia:
The oil rig used was the Borgholm Dolphin rig that was docked in Belfast at the time. moreGoofs:
Plot holes: If an employee requires medical treatment on an off-shore installation he would immediately be evacuated off. moreQuotes:
Inge: Before the holocaust, Adolf Hitler called all of his collaborators together and in order to convince them that he could get away with his plan he asked them who remembers the extermination of the Armenians? That's what he said. Thirty years later nobody remembered the million Armenians exterminated in the cruelest possible way. moreSoundtrack:
Codicia moreFAQ
How does it end?more
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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")