Isabel Coixet

The Secret Life of Words -- Academy Award winner Tim Robbins ('Mystic River') stars in this powerfully acted and critically acclaimed film from Pedro Almodovar, the renowned director of Volver and Talk to Her.

Respected cultural critic and author David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is a middle-aged college professor who, for years, has lived in a state of "emancipated manhood." His romantic conquests are many; his lasting commitments, few. But when a stunning young student named Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz) enters his life, her otherworldly beauty captivates him to the point of obsession. Soon, their erotic relationship evolves into an undying and passionate love in this gripping drama that explores the power of love to blind, reveal and transform.

Cultural critic David Kepesh sits in his ivory tower, divorced from any romantic or familial entanglements -- until the sultry 24-year-old daughter of Cuban exiles reawakens his sense of sexual excitement in this well-acted drama.

David Kepesh is an eminent 70-year-old cultural critic and lecturer at a New York college who's womanizing ways were ended by a devastating, all-consuming affair he had eight years before with voluptuous 24-year-old Consuela Castillo, a graduate student and daughter of a prosperous Cuban family.