Reviews (15)

Fascinating and unpredictable French film--
The French film, "Read My Lips," is part crime-thriller and part drama, but the end product is a fascinating story about the relationship that develops between two very odd characters. Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a 35-year-old office worker whose need for a hearing aid causes the office lotharios to have a good laugh at her expense. Her quiet demeanor and plain looks really belie her nature, but no-one bothers to discover what sort of a person she is. Her friends use her as a free babysitter when they're not using her flat for assignations, and her co-workers depend on her to carry projects through, but then they steal the glory. Carla's ability to read lips keeps her one step ahead in the world of office politics, and she quietly keeps this secret talent to herself.

Carla's boss tells her to employ an assistant. This is Carla's first independent action, and she immediately shows her hand by requesting and describing the sort of young male assistant she wants. Sleazy ex-con Paul (Vincent Cassel) gets the job, and he is, of course, entirely unsuitable. Before long, Carla is helping Paul--finding him a place to live and covering for his errors. Carla obviously likes Paul, and her naked neediness really seems to spell heartbreak. Is she vunerable and desperate enough to fall--without reservations--for him?

The film's plot takes many twists and turns as the relationship between Carla and Paul develops in the most unexpected ways. I didn't know where the film was taking me, but it didn't matter because the characters were fascinating. Carla and Paul aren't exactly 'nice' characters, and sometimes having unpleasant characters as protagonists does not work--I was not fond of "Marie--Baie de Anges," for example. Carla's character doesn't generate a lot of sympathy because she's basically as hard as nails. Yes, she's deaf, but that really isn't a handicap at all for her. It's a handicap for people who know her--they either treat her badly or say things without realizing she can read their lips. Paul is obviously Carla's intellectual inferior--a bit of a thug in need of a good wash--and he doesn't have a heart of gold either. What do they need from each other? And what are they capable of giving? But it's the characters that make this film fascinating and unpredictable. The depths of their characters are revealed through crisis and need. The acting was superb, and I especially enjoyed Emmanuelle Devos as Carla. For French film lovers, "Read My Lips" is a must--displacedhuman.

Partners in Love and Crime: Romantic in its Original Way
"Read My Lips" stars Vincent Cassel ("Crimson Rivers") and Emmanulle Devos, directed by Jacques Audiard, whose father Michael was also in the film business, a famous writer for many Fench noir films. And this film is also a great noir, based on one simple idea which Audiard uses quite brilliantly.

The film is seen from the viewpoint of Carla (Devos), who works at a small office as secretary. Carla, who is now mid-thirty and needs a hearing aid, is always ignored at her office, and is made to work hard before the copy-machine. And her life is utterly lonely.

So, when the boss told Carla to hire an assistant, she wants someone whom she can definitely "amiable." And preferably, male. Enters a guy named Paul (Cassel), who is, as he reveals soon, on parole, and may still have some connection with the underworld. Does she hire him? Why not, and he is very handsome.

The relations between Carla and Paul lead on to the series of unexpected events, including a love story and big money. Carla is clearly in love with Paul, but at the same time she kind of exploits him as his possible "love" and employer; Paul also uses her special gift of "reading lips" in the situation like "Rear Window," in which he might get even with the gangster who had once humiliated him.

"Read My Lips" belongs to the genre of noir, some people say rightly, but the film works better as a romance between two losers in society. It's not an usual love or romance. It's a kind of romance in which one finds a consolation in the other, but the act starts to violate the codes of ethics as it goes on and on. There are crimes depicted here, but the most profoundly moving one is about the very dangerous relationship between Carla and Paul, or especially anything about Carla, who manipulates and is manipulated.

Great acting from Emmanuelle Devos who must be both "ugly" and "seductive" at the same time. She simply rivets your eyes on the screen whenever she appears. No wonder she beat Audrey Tautou at Cesar Awards, winning the best actress. Even Vincent Cassel pales before him, and that's really something.

The only complaint is its unnecessary sub-plot about the parole officer, which looks as if mercilessly cut to make room for the two leads. I thought, OK, but why not cut it all?

That aside, "Read My Lips" is a strong film about the power-game between the man and woman. Rarely was the relation between man and woman depicted so convincingly. And love, very fragile kind of love.

'Read My Lips' is a treat for any intelligent movie watcher
Despite the fact I'd heard no buzz about it, I stumbled upon 'Read My Lips' earlier this year and thought I'd give it a try. Now, I'm trying to spread the word to everyone I know: See this movie. 'Read My Lips' is taut, thrilling, complex, and intelligent. Everything you want in a movie-watching experience.

French director Jacques Audiard has said of this film that he wanted to explore the possibilities from pairing an intelligent but not very good-looking woman with a good-looking man who's not the sharpest stick in the drawer. Thus, we're presented with our anti-heroes, Carla and Paul. Audiard does a great job giving us a visual painting of their respective backgrounds.

Carla: nearly deaf, approaching 'old maid' status (35 and no prospects in sight), obviously bright but trundled on and all but ignored at work (consigned to be an admin at a male-dominated construction company), taken for granted by her friends

Paul: Just released from prison, no discernable talents outside of those that got him into hot water to begin with, desperate to find a job to kind his parole officer happy.

These characters hook up, do a wary dance, and slowly realize how they can use each other's 'unique' talents. What a ride. It's brilliantly staged by Audiard.

One item of note: dowdy and 'not good looking' (Audiard's term) Carla is played by Emmanuelle Devos, who only happens to be one of the world's most beautiful film actresses. So, it takes quite a lot of work to establish the Carla character as overlooked and ignored. Audiard does his brilliantly - for example, coffee cups and water glasses are left wordlessly on her desk as others kibbitz around her and blithely ignore her presence. It's subtle, intelligent movie making, the kind of stuff you want to acknowledge and support.

Such A Love
"Read My Lips" is quite an engaging film. I love the character of Carla. It showed a disabled woman able to make a life for herself and did so without sympathy or dwelling on the disability. The fact that she could read lips became the focal point of the second half of the film. Emmannuel Devos may have been too pretty for the supposedly plain character of Carla, but her acting was convincing with costume, hairstyle and makeup all accentuating her lack of glamour. She reveals the inner life and insecurity of the character with quick winces of the eye and wry smiles.

Director Jacques Audiard does a good job of pacing the film. We get introduced to the characters, come to know them a bit, and then have the complications start to stack. The film doesn't crescendo in a raging climax like Hollywood cinema might prefer, but instead gives a more real sense of how these events impact the lives of Carla and Paul. Audiard also received the French Academy of Cinema award for best screenplay for the film and was nominated for best director.

As Paul Angeli, Vincent Cassel is breathtaking. I'd seen him before in an American film "Birthday Girl" with Nicole Kidman as a Russian mail order bride who scams her grooms. Cassel was one of her Russian buddies who show up unexpectedly. In "Read My Lips" he's an ex-con with few possibilities. Despite his lack of talent and the violent life he's been used to, he has a great heart and treats Carla kindly. The attraction is uneasy due to the characters' situations, but comes across as electric. As "Read My Lips" bumps and stutters to its final images of Paul groping Carla's leg, it is an uncompromising joy ride. Enjoy!

Smell my shirt
For those of you who have seen this rather extraordinary romantic thriller noir, my review title is self-explanatory: this is cinema verité for the 21st century. For those of you who haven't, let me note that this begins slowly, so stay with it. You won't regret it.

What French director Jacques Audiard has done is create a taunt noir thriller with a romantic subplot intricately woven into the fabric of the main plot, told in the realistic and nonglamorous manner usually seen in films that win international awards. In fact, Sur mes lèvre did indeed win a Cesar (for Emmanuelle Devos) and some other awards. For Audiard character development and delineation are more important than action, yet the action is extremely tense. The romance is of the counter-cultural sort seen in films like, say, Kalifornia (1993) or Natural Born Killer (1994) or the Aussie Kiss or Kill (1997), a genre I call "grunge love on the lam" except that the principles here are not on the road (yet) and still have most of their moral compasses intact.

Vincent Cessel and Emmanuelle Devos play the nonglamorous leads, Paul and Carla. Carla is a mousy corporate secretary--actually she's supposed to be mousy, but in fact is intriguing and charismatic and more than a wee bit sexy. But she is inexperienced with men, doesn't dance, is something of a workaholic who lives out a fantasy life home alone with herself. She is partially deaf and adept at reading lips, a talent that figures prominently in the story. She is a little put on by the world and likes to remove her hearing aid or turn it off. When she collapses from overwork her boss suggests she hire an assistant. She hires Paul, who is just out of prison, even though he has no clerical experience. He is filled with the sort of bad boy sex appeal that may recall Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless (1959) or even Richard Gere in the American remake from 1983. We get the sense that Carla doesn't realize that she hired him because she found him attractive. When Carla gets squeezed out of credit for a company deal, she gets Paul to help her turn the tables. From there it is but a step to a larger crime. Note that Carla is unconsciously getting Paul to "prove" his love for her (and his virility) by doing what she wants, working for her, appearing in front of her girl friends as her beau, etc.

The camera work features tense, off-center closeups so that we see a lot of the action not in the center of our field of vision but to the periphery as in things partially hidden or overheard or seen out of the corner of our eyes. Audiard wants to avoid any sense of a set or a stage. The camera is not at the center of the action, but is a spy that catches just enough of what is going on for us to follow. Additionally, the film is sharply cut so that many scenes are truncated or even omitted and it is left for us to surmise what has happened. This has the effect of heightening the viewer's involvement, although one has to pay attention. Enhancing the staccato frenzy is a sparse use of dialogue. This works especially well for those who do not speak French since the distraction of having to follow the subtitles is kept to a minimum.

Powering the film is a script that reveals and explores the unconscious psychological mechanisms of the main characters while dramatizing both their growing attraction to each other and their shared criminal enterprise. But more than that is the on-screen chemistry starkly and subtly developed by both Devos and Cessel. It is pleasing to note that the usual thriller plot contrivances are kept to a minimum here, and the surprises really are surprises.

See this for Emmanuelle Devos whose skill and offbeat charisma more than make up for a lack of glamor, and for Vincent Cessel for a testosterone-filled performance so intense one can almost smell the leather jacket. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The Portrait Of The Hero As A Young Man
French Albert has always had a meaningless life. Living beyond the shadow of his possessive mother in the countryside of France, he dreams of becoming someone big. And his dreams come true; he becomes a very important and famous hero of war without even being at any war. This is the story of the right man, in the right, and that with some help of chance and luck, happens to deceive many people and achieve a huge success, power, notoriety and money.

The film is told in flashback by Albert himself, who shows what led him to become what he did. Moreover, to make things more believable, from time to time there is an 'spontaneous' and accurate report by people who lived with Albert commenting on his actions and events of his life. The film has a very peculiar kind of fun, that may not suit all tastes.

Mathieu Jassovitz is very funny and good as the soldier. Albert is funny and very very intelligent. The script is very well written and is shows how Albert has never meant to be bad, but he was led to do what he did.

All in all, it is a different movie that I recommend to all who want to have some fun combined with intelligence. It is not the kind of humor that makes you laugh out laud, but it makes you smile many times.

great
This is a great film. The characters were very believable, and the setting and details of postwar Europe were well researched. Really enjoyable story of a dreamer, that keeps you grounded with more than a couple moments that remind you that war is never simple and always a tragedy.

Well made film of a self made sleaze
Why can't American films look this good?! How do the European film makers make their characters so human? This movie takes a little time to take off but no real thumb twiddling here. The story of a young man who, after World War II discovers the benefits of lying his way to a high ranking position in the provisional French government. Not someone you'd care too much for. That's the only problem here. Well done. ... Read more