Strand Releasing

NEW YORK -- "The Secret Life of Words," Isabel Coixet's follow-up to her acclaimed "My Life Without Me," proves as pretentious as its title. An enigmatic romance between a deaf, emotionally shutdown woman (Sarah Polley) and the voluble burn victim (Tim Robbins) whom she nurses back to health on an oil rig, the film is ironically undone by the explicitness of its dialogue in the final scenes.

Hanna (Polley) embraces her deafness, strategically shutting off her hearing aid in order to shut herself off from the world's intrusions. Her only meaningful contact comes via phone calls to a mysterious woman (Julie Christie) in which she hangs up without saying a word.

When, after four years without taking a break, she is not-so-gently forced to take a monthlong vacation by her concerned boss, she improbably winds up on an oil rig off the coast of Ireland, where she tends to Josef (Robbins), who suffered severe burns and temporarily blindness while attempting to help a co-worker after an explosion.

Despite his injuries, Josef is chatty and flirtatious and is only more intrigued by Hanna's refusal to engage with him in a meaningful fashion. Eventually, his humor and warmth break down her defenses, resulting in a tearful monologue in which she details the reasons for her self-imposed isolation.

This is drawn out in attenuated fashion, with comic relief provided via a chatty cook (Javier Camara) who has taken a shine to Hanna.

While both lead performers deliver moving, complex performances, they are hamstrung by the predictable, cliched elements of Coixet's script, which is particularly obvious when it gets around to delineating the background of Polley's character. The claustrophobic and artificial atmosphere of the setting is unfortunately matched by the equally artificial drama.