The Secret Life of Words

The Secret Life of Words

A movie about the incredible damage that human beings can inflict on each other, and how the simple act of honest communication can apply a restorative, perhaps even curative, balm upon the psyche. Sarah Polley plays the lead role with convincing restraint. Her natural beauty is downplayed but cannot be completely suppressed. Her character, Hannah, is introduced as a hearing-impaired factory worker who lives an obviously dreary and severely regimented life. The clues to the underlying emotional damage mount up. She eats alone, the same monastic meal, chicken nuggets with white rice and a piece of apple, all the time. Her posture is slumped and defeated, she moves with an almost lifeless precision, she turns her hearing aid off to shut out the noise of the world.

The impetus to change comes via a complaint from her trade union colleagues that forces her to take an undesired vacation. She travels to a British seaside resort where she, by chance, overhears a phone conversation. The man on the phone needs to find a nurse to take care of an injured worker on an oil rig. Hannah, desperate to avoid her vacation time, volunteers to be that nurse.

Of course, it is a quite a leap to believe that this emotionally fractured woman would take this impetuous plunge into a world she knows nothing about. Indeed, the discrepancies that this film presents, both large and small, gradually eat into its believability. Hannah is hearing-impaired, yet never seems to have any problem hearing. She displays some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder related to a phobia of dirt and germs, yet seems to integrate into the world of oil rigs and patient care without a second thought. She is hired as a nurse and helicoptered off to the oil rig with nary a check on her nursing credentials - we later find out she was a nursing student. More importantly, considering what is later revealed about her past, Hannah is willing to jump into the isolated environment of an oil rig, to be the only women in a population of lonely men.

Tim Robbins plays the role of the patient (named Josef), an especially difficult one given his inability to see or move. For some reason (perhaps to give the actor more room to act), the patient’s eyes are not bandaged. However, in the scene near the end of the movie where he regains his sight, another nurse is shown removing the bandages...

Josef must form a connection with his recalcitrant nurse with words alone. He is portrayed as a charismatic person, a bit of a womanizer, though one who avoids commitments. His injuries are self-inflicted, both literally and figuratively. He tried to save his suicidal friend’s life by plucking him for a fire; he also feels responsible for the suicide - he had seduced his friend’s wife.

So Hannah tends to his wounds and listens to his secrets. Even though it is obvious where this is going, the scene where Hannah reveals her secrets to him was shocking, both visually and emotionally. It reveals a brutality of war that is seldom talked about. Torture and rape is used as a tactic to instill fear in the populace, and to strip away the fragile morality of the combatants. Her confession scene is powerful, it might have been better to end the film soon after. However, the film makers wanted more than that - they force a scene with Hannah’s therapist, a scene that preaches more than reveals.

One final note about the young voice that narrates occasionally. The accent is difficult to understand and leaves the viewer straining to listen. The narrator is Hannah’s friend that didn’t survive. It is symbolic of all victims of wartime rape and torture. The voice of Hannah’s friend is the voice of Hannah’s youthful innocence that’s been carved away and sacrificed to the gods of war.