Trailer
Plot summary
Rory Jansen wants to be a novelist, but the publishers he approaches keep turning his book down. He and Dora live in New York, where his father has been paying the bills; when the money stops, Rory takes a job at a literary agency and the two of them marry. During their honeymoon in Paris, Dora buys him an old briefcase he had admired in a shop. Back home, another rejection waiting, Rory opens the briefcase and discovers a manuscript written by someone else, a story whose central figure is named Jack. He types it into his laptop to feel what writing something great might be like. Dora reads it, believes it is his, and urges him to show it to Joseph Cutler, a publisher.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Words (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The plot device of Celia leaving her husband's manuscript in a leather satchel on a train is reminiscent of an episode in Hemingway's life, when his first wife Hadley left a briefcase containing all of his writings up to 1922 on a train; the manuscripts were never recovered.
- Some Swiss newspapers said the plot resembled Martin Suter's 2004 novel Lila Lila, but Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal said they knew nothing of Suter or his work, having begun writing The Words in 1999 and taken their screenplay to the 2000 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.
- Prior to its official premiere and following a press and industry screening at Sundance, the film was purchased by CBS Films for $2 million with a $1.5 million print and advertising commitment.
- Bradley Cooper, who stars in the film, was a childhood friend of Klugman and Sternthal from Philadelphia, and he was also its executive producer.
- Filming began in Montreal, Quebec, on June 7, 2011 for a period of 25 days, and the Montreal location was used because it could pass as both Paris and New York.
