As mentioned below this is the one week of the year that my bride and I step away from the local Cinemark and check out the latest indie films playing at the Sundance Film Festival. This morning along with my brother and his bride we used the good fortune of an early morning ticket draw to see the widely acclaimed film The Words.

This film features Bradley Cooper in a role that steps far away from the slapstick comedian in The Hangover series and into the realm of serious dramatic acting. This is a role that I wasn't expecting from Mr. Cooper, but he was terrific.

Rory Jansen (Cooper) is a struggling writer living in New York City with his new wife Dora (Zoe Saldana). Despite working tirelessly on his writing he has yet to have his work published. While honeymooning with his new bride in Paris he stumbles across a beautiful old briefcase that Dora decides she is going to purchase for Rory for him to carry his work. After returning home to find more letters of rejection for his work, Jansen finds a hidden pocket in his new briefcase that contains a story that begins to consume his life.

Despite doing everything he can to get the story out of his mind he decides one night to sit and copy the work word for word "just to feel the words go through his body". His plans of never doing anything with the work are radically changed when his wife finds the manuscript on his computer and urges him to put it out there for the world to read.

What happens next is the conscious struggle between a man who is being lauded as the toast of the literary world, and a man who knows the truth. An ill-fated afternoon meeting with an unnamed character played brilliantly by Jeremy Irons leads to decisions that will make Jansen look at the world in an entirely different light.

It is a little more difficult to write reviews of Sundance films as the vast majority of the world has never heard of the plot line, and therefore has no idea the context of the plot. Well, not to go all Inception on you, but there is another story that expands the depth of this film.

Dennis Quaid plays writer Clay Hammond, an experienced writer with plenty of adoring fans. Throughout the film the story that we are being told comes from Hammond's book titled The Words. The story that comes from this plot line will have you asking your friends exactly what happened as you walk to your car, and the beauty of this film is that each of you might have a different answer, and they all will be right (although I still maintain that I was "righter" than everyone... but that's just me).

The star studded cast in this film will likely lead to a wide release at some point in 2012. Following the film, during the Q & A with the writers we learned that this project took them nearly 12 years from putting pen to paper to us devouring treats and the women in the theater hoping Bradley Cooper's shirt falls off. The long journey led to a great film that will make you think, and entertain you for 2 hours... AKA exactly what I look for in a film.

The Words
Directed by: Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal
Written by: Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, and Zoe Saldana
My Rating: 4 out of 5
Would Gene Pick it?: Yes