Isabel Coixet has already disappointed me before with My Life Without Me , but I decide to give her a second chance and went to the The Secret Life of Words, but I could only confirm my first impression: I was not in a bad mood day, the film was really thin.

In this third, (this is the last),Coixet's film that I viewed, I could at least discern what is so annoying in her. This phony poetic moments and predictable characters don't work to make a compelling story. This cliché plagued films neither managed to tell you something new, not to raise any emotion. The film is pretentious, but fails to reach anything of value. Being quirky doesn't mean you are special. Trying to be 'cool' is the easiest thing you can do to make a film fail.

Isabel Coixet relocates Dutch writer Lot Vekemans' critically acclaimed play "Poison" (is she credited for the original story?) to Spain, four years from now. In 2017, the economy will have collapsed, Spain is ruined, financially and morally, and redemption and forgiveness seem impossible in the barren, windswept landscape. The confrontation between the two former lovers who have lost their son due to bad health care (again a result of the current collapse of public infrastructure) is played out as a chamber piece. Futuristic concrete architecture symbolizes their current battle ground which tears open the wounds that never healed. In black and white sequences in a craggy cave, Coixet glimpses into her characters' cold interior world. Their ramblings are tiring, exhausting but still gripping. Optimism is not easy to find in this film, and yet it takes you through the excruciating pain of separation only to find the imperative of life, against all odds (and in futuristic Spain the odds are high). As one of many films at this year's Berlinale, this film has stayed with me for a long time.

I haven't read the source material, so I can't compare that to the movie. I can say that what I saw was not as compelling as I wished it would have been. The movie tries hard to be engaging and make us feel compassion and more for the two lead characters. While their play is fine (mostly),the movie is ridden with clichés and as predictable as it gets, which derives the movie of most of its tension.

The "future" setting is only a disguise, the movie is about human behavior and relationships. About past and present and an uncertain future. I did really like "My life without me", because it not only raised questions, but it had a great lead actress and the structure of the movie was far better. I can't say the same about this, though it still has some (if few) moments of its own