Can words make more of an impact than bullets? This question is at the heart of the thriller The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, The Firm) and starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Kidman plays Silvia Broome, an interpreter at the U.N. whose understanding of the (fictional) remote African dialect Ku puts her life in danger when she overhears a whispered conversation in Ku after hours in the U.N. General Assembly that sounds like a plot to assassinate Edmund Zuwanie, the head of the (fictional) African state of Motobo, at the U.N. When Silvia reports what she heard, federal agent Tobin Keller (Penn) is assigned to the case. But the more Tobin learns about Silvia, the more he wonders if she’s a victim or a suspect, and he only has three days to unravel the mystery before Zuwanie arrives at the U.N.

The themes of The Interpreter are very relevant in our 21st century world: diplomacy vs. force, vengeance vs. forgiveness vs. justice, suspicion vs. trust. Kidman and Penn are excellent in their roles and perfect foils for one another, even as they are drawn to each other. The movie also feels very real, and rightly so as it was the first production ever granted access to film inside the U.N. (which had to be done in weekend shoots over a five month period when the U.N. wasn’t in session). However, while the plot twists keep you on the edge of your seat for much of the film, in the end the story gets too twisty and confusing for its own good and too far-fetched. Overall, while I applaud a film that celebrates diplomacy over violence, this one requires quite a bit of interpretation to make sense of it all.