We are presented with Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), a high school literature teacher who likes to play with words and also explaining their meaning although nobody ever asks for it. He was once a published writer but appears to have lost his creativity. Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) is the new art teacher, who was once a successful painter in New York but now she has a condition, rheumatoid arthritis, so she can’t paint like she used to. From the first moment they engage in a sort of battle: he plays words with her (trying to find words with many syllables) and she tells her students that words are not to be trusted and that pictures are better. Since they have the same students in their class - although they both teach advanced courses - they learn from them what the other says. Marcus starts a war, what’s better, words or pictures?
The two of them only meet at school, but we also see them at home. Dina finds it hard to adjust to her condition, not only because of the pain but also because she can’t create anything that she likes anymore. Marcus drinks too much but doesn’t realize that he has a problem. He has a teenage son who would like him to meet his girlfriend, but gives up the idea because of this problem. He’s been banned from a restaurant for causing troubles, and is on the verge of being fired. Also, his literary magazine is about to be shut down. His only way of dealing with his problems is thru vodka. I’m not sure if he drinks because he can’t write, or if he can’t write because he drinks too much. Honestly I lean towards the second, but it’s just an opinion, nothing in the movie answers this question.
To keep the magazine running, since he hasn’t written anything in a very long time, he produces a new poem, and when I read it I thought: wow, he seems so disagreeable and yet I like this poem, maybe he’s not so bad after all, but then it turns out that he stole his son’s poem..
There’s also a little side story, an obnoxious kid who keeps tormenting a girl, Emily. He’s really annoying, and when she finally rejects him out loud, trying to get him to leave her alone, he makes an embarrassing drawing of her and puts it on the school website. She’s very hurt. Of course when Delsanto sees the drawing he made of her she laughs at it, but she’s not a teenage girl..
All the class sides with her fortunately, and when proof is found the guy is suspended (I think). Good.
Back to our protagonists, Marcus is not fired because of the good things Delsanto said about him at the hearing. He goes to her house, thanking her, charming her. They kiss and they have sex, and then they talk and laugh together, and then he stays the night saying that he doesn’t want to go home. That’s ok by her, but during the night he gets up and finds a bottle in her fridge. He drinks it all, and then in his drunkenness he ruins her latest paintings, the only one she was finally happy with. In the morning she’s so hurt that she only wants him to go away without another word.
Finally, almost at the end of the movie he realizes that he may have a problem and starts attending AA meetings; he confesses to the school board that he copied the poem and hands them his resignation letter, only asking to stay until the end of the school year.
At the end there is the final debate, with the students comparing words with pictures and talking about the matter to decide what’s best (which anyway is absurd, they are different and both powerful, what’s best depends simply on the kind of person watching or listening). Marcus secretly had pupil student Emily finish Dina’s painting, the one he ruined, and then show it there in front of everyone. She doesn’t mind apparently, on the contrary she smiles and says that it’s a great thing that she started making art and then Emily finished it. I would appreciate her part of the job, although there should be two names on it now and not just one, but I wouldn’t like him showing it to everyone without my previous consent.
Anyway, after the debate, Marcus and Dina talk a bit, laugh together and hug. Peace made.
Personally, the debate was boring, it wasn’t clear if they were all in favour of pictures or if there was someone advocating for words; some students quoted famous authors, maybe that’s all they have to say about the matter. Personally, I love words. I love pictures too, and I think the movie failed to show how beautiful both things can be. Very few paintings shown, mostly of the same style (Dina’s). I mean, plenty of good enough painters even in my small town, they couldn’t find a few more to show?
Words are just as beautiful, and they can evoke sensations, emotions, dreams, but Marcus managed to make them boring.
I liked Binoche enough, and also Janet Kidder as her sister Sabine.
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