The Secret Life of Words

Grade: B+

Spanish director Isabel Coixet and Canadian actress Sarah Polley seemed to have forged a celluloid alliance, following their 2003 collaboration My Life Without Me with a drama that starts slowly, builds to a devastating climax and ends on a hopeful note that beautifully bypasses smarmy sentimentalism. Though it won four major Goya Awards - Spain's equivalent of the Oscar- it got an extremely limited theatrical release in the States. Hopefully its recent DVD release will help it find an appreciative audience.

Polley plays Hanna, an deaf Eastern European woman who works in a British factory, isolating herself from social interaction as much as she possibly can. On holiday in Northern Ireland she learns of a fire that took place on an offshore oil rig, and volunteers to nurse a severely burned man named Josef (Tim Robbins) back to health. Over the course of his convalescence, the outgoing Josef brings Hanna out of her shell, reminding her of her capacity for joy and, eventually, making her feel safe enough to share the horrific life experiences that shaped her into such a fragile creature.

Polley and Robbins are great together, and Coixet coaxes endearing supporting performances from the rest of the guys on the rig. The voiceover narration (done by a creepy squeaky-voiced woman) is irritating and obtuse, but at least it's infrequent.

Till they meet again Coixet and Polley have other projects to tend to. Coixet is currently directing Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley in Elegy, an adaptation of Philip Roth's short novel The Dying Animal. Meanwhile Polley can sit back and soak in the enormous critical praise for her directing debut Away From Her. It has only earned about $4 million at the box office, but it's bound to catapult Julie Christie into this year's Best Actress race.