A flamboyant English teacher and a new, stoic art instructor form a rivalry that ends up with a competition at their school in which students decide whether words or pictures are more important.
In the end none of its gels, leaving fragments of a good movie that with a little more focus, and a little more polish, could have reached its potential.
If you're looking for a date night option, you might find that spending the time in company of Owen and Binoche is good value, but the pictures here tend to overshadow the quality of the words.
No, it's not fair that "Words and Pictures" isn't the movie we'd like it to be. But if it were better at being the movie it wanted to be, that wouldn't be an issue.
The opposites-attract business exchanged by Jack and Dina is so efficiently scheduled throughout the script, you could almost imagine these moments were timetabled by software.
Words and Pictures stars Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche - a matchup that makes you want to like Fred Schepisi's film, even when it becomes impossible to do so.
It is a joy to see a film that tackles the topic of art and its value in the world, and all the better that actors of Owen's and Binoche's caliber can lead it.
