A Thousand Words (2012)

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Clark Duke, Kerry Washington, Cliff Curtis, Allison Janney, Ruby Dee, Jack McBrayer and John Witherspoon
Grade: C

A Thousand Words was better than Meet Dave, but that’s not saying much.

Summary

To open the film, we hear the inner voice narration of Jack McCall (Murphy). Why the inner voice, you ask? It’s because if Jack speaks one more sentence aloud, he’ll die.

We then move backwards to how see how he got here.

Jack is a fast-talking literary agent and is the best at his job. After getting off the phone with his assistant Aaron (Duke) and spending the morning with his wife Caroline (Washington) and their baby, we see Jack on his way to work. He’s work-focused, self-centered, and a bit arrogant with how he handles things. Soon after getting to work, Aaron asks Jack why doing meaningless tasks like picking specific marshmallows out of Jack’s cereal is preparing him to become an agent, so Jack starts giving him advice on how to talk while encouraging him on a lesser note. Following this, he leads up a presentation for his co-workers about Dr. Sinja (Curtis), the most popular nondenominational religious leader on the planet. Apparently, he’s outselling Celine Dion, U2, Billy Graham, and Hannah Montana.

One guy asks what Sinja’s philosophy is and apparently, it’s “In quiet, there is truth”.

Jack’s boss Samantha Davis (Janney) is unconvinced Jack can be the one to sign Sinja to a deal, but he’s confident he can make it happen. He wholeheartedly believes he can “talk anybody into doing anything”. At Sinja’s compound, Jack sits with many of Sinja’s believers in a seated position as they all meditate together. Seeing how Sinja reacts when a woman weeps during meditation, Jack decides to get his attention by acting as if he’s seeing something frightening during meditation too. This does get Sinja’s attention, and he sends a couple of his workers to help Jack to another room to calm down. The two privately speak, with Jack continuously hamming it up regarding his “enlightenment” during the meditation. You can tell Sinja isn’t buying it. He asks Jack for the purpose of his visit, so he lays it all on the line. Knowing that Sinja has written a book, Jack offers to spread his message to the rest of the world by signing him to a deal. Immediately, Sinja lets him know he isn’t interested. Ever the persistent one, Jack continues to try and convince him, with him lying about how big of a fan he is and how he read Sinja’s book. At the same time, he does admit he’ll get at least 10%. As he talks, he gets a splinter from putting his hand on a Bodhi tree. Eventually, Sinja agrees to sign with Jack if he publishes his book and spreads his message in the way it was intended.

Afterwards, Jack calls Aaron to tell him the good news. He clears his schedule for the day to celebrate and goes to see his mother (Dee) at the nursing home. Sadly, she’s dealing with Alzheimer’s and thinks Jack is her deceased husband, Raymond. He tries to have fun with her on her birthday but her constantly calling out for Raymond and forgetting Jack is her son starts to break his heart, so he leaves. That night, Caroline tells Jack she wants to move to the suburbs to raise their family because their house is currently set up like a bachelor bad and is unsafe for a newborn. Jack doesn’t want to move but is willing to change a room or two to benefit the baby. Caroline isn’t satisfied. As they argue, they’re interrupted by a giant tree inexplicably sprouting out in the backyard. It’s the same tree Jack got a splinter from at Sinja’s compound. He questions his groundskeeper about the tree at first but passes it off as a gift from Sinja once he recognizes it, deciding to keep it. After noting it’s “sorta classy”, a couple of leaves fall off the tree as he walks back into the house.

The next morning at work, Aaron tells Jack he read Sinja’s book (since Jack refuses to read anything). To both of their surprises, it’s only five pages long. Shocked and worried he’s screwed, Jack goes straight to Sinja to ask him what the hell is going on. Sinja tells him this has always been the book, and he thought Jack “loved it” according to Jack himself. An angry Jack starts to give him shit and points out the stupidity of gifting him the tree as well, but Sinja has no idea what he’s talking about. The two men go to Jack’s house, and he shows Sinja. This is where Sinja realizes that Jack is “connected” with this tree and every time he says something, a leaf falls off. Seeing Jack cough, he realizes all of Jack’s talking is making him sick. The leaves are basically his lifespan.

The more he talks, the more leaves fall. When more leaves fall, the sicker he gets.

If he continues to talk, he’s going to die. Sinja guesses there’s maybe a thousand leaves left, so Jack has a thousand words left to speak.

Get it?

He tries cutting the tree down with an axe but since they are “connected”, the shock sends Jack flying across his yard with a scar on himself representing the damage done by the axe to the tree. Sinja pleads ignorance to how this could happen, but he notes he heard of a story about this happening to some guy named Stan. He died, but he was honored. Since he has to go to Bolivia for a spiritual retreat that night, Sinja promises Jack he will talk to his colleagues there about this situation to see if he can gather some information. He’ll be back in three days. Until then, Jack can’t talk. How hard can that be? Well, we’re about to find out. After a bad dream, Jack wakes up the next morning and writes Caroline a note. Unfortunately, we find out that the tree’s leaves still fall when he writes, making things even harder.

Now, Jack has to find a way to stay quiet to stay alive, but it becomes increasingly difficult for a man with a job like this, along with a marriage that had its communication problems to begin with.

My Thoughts:

A Thousand Words has all the classic elements of a solid Eddie Murphy feature (creative plot, Eddie losing his mind, Eddie arguing with people, loads of expressive humor, etc.), but it never gets to where it needs to be.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of funny moments that make good use of the premise like Jack having to stop a blind man (Witherspoon) from getting hit by oncoming traffic without saying anything, Jack trying to explain his Starbucks order, the conundrum of his wife trying to spice up their sex life by demanding he talk dirty to her, but he can’t, and everything with Aaron. They’re all legitimately funny moments. There’s a lot of fun to be had and Murphy tries his hardest with the material given, but besides the select few scenes, the screenplay is pretty weak for a star with his comedic ability. One argument that has been made about the film was that taking away Eddie Murphy’s biggest talent in talking is the reason why he was the wrong choice for this film. Though I do agree that talking is his biggest comedic talent, you can’t sit there and tell me Murphy isn’t a talented enough actor to make a movie like this work. I don’t blame Murphy here because there’s a lot of humor in here that works because of him, his facial expressions, and his reactions to what’s going on around him, along with his odd couple team with Clark Duke who’s a surprising revelation in the film (the scene where he just starts admitting all the things he’s done in the office was gold).

I blame the screenplay as to why this wasn’t better because we had a serious opportunity here. The issue Jack finds himself in this film should’ve expanded the story into something much bigger as each act went by. However, there’s so much in this film that doesn’t make sense that keeps cooling off the story’s momentum. About an hour into the movie, Jack gets fired for not being able to talk at an important meeting and being high as hell as a result of the tree at home being sprayed by DDT and him feeling the effects from it. His assistant Aaron comes to his house to help him, so Jack finally tells him about the tree and his situation. First of all, considering how important all of these previous meetings were, why didn’t he tell Aaron right from the beginning since Aaron deals with literally every single one of Jack’s day-to-day situations?

You know what, how about this? For the sake of argument, let’s say we stick to what the screenwriter wanted (even though it doesn’t make sense) and go with Jack telling Aaron about his issue after he gets fired.

In this case, After Jack told Aaron what’s going on, how come he didn’t have Aaron tell his boss to try and save his job? At the very least, why doesn’t he have Aaron tell his wife Caroline what’s going on? His marriage crumbles at one point because of his inability to talk. Jack’s a pretty smart guy, so I don’t see how he wouldn’t think to beg his assistant to help him in this situation when Aaron is pretty much the only friend he has. Together, they could’ve told everyone, sought attention from doctors, and even the news media. It could’ve made Jack a public figure that can’t talk and the whole world could’ve been watching him, turning him into a global celebrity! At the same time, Jack could figure out creative ways to get his message across without talking and it could result in him becoming an even bigger success than he was before. Thousands could come to his backyard to see the legendary tree that could cause Jack his life too, and it could become a historical site while Jack moves into a mansion by his lonesome. From there, Jack could be the face of magazines and movies could even be based on him. This would eventually lead to his unhappiness anyway because his family is missing, and he could still learn the lesson he needs to while upping the entertainment factor tenfold. This way, you can go straight back to the emotional third act and everything would still make sense.

Do you see what I’m talking about? There’s so much that could’ve been done with A Thousand Words, but the filmmakers squandered the creative premise by being content with making an average comedy with sitcom-level comedic scenes and giving us characters with very little depth. They didn’t see the big picture, and it’s unfortunate.

The logistical issues persist in this movie far beyond the basic narrative too. Let’s talk about the perplexing scene in which the tree appears in Jack’s backyard in the beginning of the film. Jack and Caroline’s whole house shakes to the point where Caroline thinks it’s an earthquake. Jack runs outside to see the new tree, and the first thing he thinks is that the groundskeeper planted it there. After he denies it, Jack passes it off as a gift from Sinja. This legitimately makes zero sense. It was almost as loud as an earthquake a second ago, so why the hell would you pass it off as someone planting it in your yard? It actually made noise! This is not a satisfactory explanation for anyone in their right mind whatsoever. I would be scared out of my fucking mind that a fully grown tree just sprouted out of the ground! If a tree showed up in my yard in the manner it did in this movie, I would think the place is haunted, or there are more trees to come. I would never think, “Damn! Someone must’ve just put this here within seconds! Oh well!”. Also, considering how he knows the tree just showed up at that very second and the groundskeeper didn’t plant in there in one second, why would he think it was a gift from Sinja? How would anyone have put it there? Who would’ve planted it while making that much noise and not being there a second later? How is this humanly possible? Why is he so fucking calm at this inexplicable phenomenon?!

Then, they later establish that Jack will get sicker as more leaves fall off the tree until he drops dead. However, besides a minor cough, he doesn’t get sicker at all. It’s like they just dropped this part from the script after they already shot the scene, and then forgot to do reshoots to continue this element of the story. If they went along with their own rules, he should’ve been in a hospital bed by the third act, barely able to walk or something. In fact, had they gone through with this idea, it would’ve fit well with the dramatic elements that the story delves into later on. Had he been falling apart physically, along with his emotional state like he does in the second half, it would’ve added a lot to the film as a whole. Plus, it would’ve gave Murphy more to chew on dramatically. Personally, I thought he did a great job with the sadder moments of the film. Any scene in the nursing home with the incredible Ruby Dee was a heartbreaker, along with the moments where he sees the “Blue Pearl” and flashes back to his past to talk to the child version of himself. The latter could’ve been written a little better dialogue-wise, but I still think Murphy did well with the emotional weight. It makes sense why it leads to a spiritual awakening of sorts.

On the other hand, maybe the critics were right. Maye Eddie Murphy wasn’t the right choice. Maybe this would’ve been better with someone who is better with gestures or physical comedy. Steve Martin, Martin Lawrence, or even Jack Black comes to mind. In a perfect world, Jim Carrey could’ve crushed this (if you’ve seen Liar Liar, you know what I’m talking about). Then again, I don’t know. The idea for A Thousand Words was there and a lot of elements proved to work, but I still think the screenplay was at fault. The whole thing felt like a missed opportunity. 

Clark Duke was pretty funny though.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Why did Aaron get Jack’s job at the end? He was completely incompetent as an assistant and even blew the one meeting he had with a client, and it was well known with the boss. Again, this didn’t make any sense. Additionally, I didn’t like Jack’s outcome either. I see that he’s happy as a version of his character of “G” from Holy Man by becoming a guru/author himself. However, I can’t help but think that a much more satisfying ending should’ve been him getting his job back, being a good person, and not acting like a dick to clients.

The ending they went with was an annoying way to end an average movie.