Read My Lips

Rating:
Summary: Such A Love
Review: "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!

Rating:
Summary: Partners in Love and Crime: Romantic in its Original Way
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: Such A Love
Review: "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!

Rating:
Summary: Such A Love
Review: "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!

Rating:
Summary: Partners in Love and Crime: Romantic in its Original Way
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: Another Fallen Souffle
Review: Any number of current French films seem to be afflicted by the same widespread but unacknowledged disease, that of an odd ponderousness. What should be fleet and deft - and would have been, say, in the New Wave films of the 60's - emerges in them as unduly protracted, non-incrementally repetitious and - overall - labored in the extreme. Clearly their directors are suffering from a mysterious self-consciousness and self-importance. The cloyingly sentimental "Dreamlife of Angels," the leaden, charmless "Amelie," and now the neo-noir TV soap opera "Sur Mes Levres" all fall within this category.
"Sur Mes Levres" in particular clearly shows, first of all, the evils of that lingering French love affair with earlier Hollywood noir films. The director, happily conversant with film history, wants to update noir. Fascinating enough. But in his hands the usually fast-paced, less than 90 minute B movie component of the older films is unfortunately expanded to a plodding, clumsily contrived, almost unbearable two hours. With such paucity of content, there is little justification for the indulgence of so much screen time. Audiard is chewing on a souffle as if it were jerky.
An equally baleful influence on this film is that of contemporary television. Not only do the jerky camera and the excessive, almost exclusive use of closeups - headache inducing by the way - resemble the "art" of MTV, but the central story, a lingering look at the vagaries of a modern "relationship" owes both its drawn out and repetitive portrayal to the soap opera romances which go on for years and years. Its great insight into the battle of the sexes, apparently, is its trite recognition that for the shirt-sniffing heroine, "no" in sexual matters in fact may mean "yes." The temptation is strong simply to dismiss this endeavor as French and let it go at that.

Rating:
Summary: It's always the details, details, details
Review: Carla (Emmanuel Devos) in Jacques Audiard's "Read My Lips" (Sur Mes Levres) is a social failure on several counts: she's practically deaf and wears two hearing apparatuses, she considers herself drab, with lifeless hair and spotty skin, she's overworked and under appreciated as an administrative assistant, she is taken advantage of by her prettier friends and employer, her fellow workers call her a "dog" and is used as a convenient, anytime baby sitter by one friend in particular. But Carla has one thing none of her friends and co-workers have: she's devilishly intelligent and merely waiting, lying in wait really, for an opportunity to implement her intelligence and unleash her wrath on a uncaring and unfeeling world. That opportunity comes in the guise of one Paul (Vincent Cassell) who applies for a job as Carla's assistant, having just been released from prison for theft and a multitude of other petty crimes. Paul, though applying for a job as an assistant to Carla has no experience on computers, taking dictation, using a copy machine or making coffee for that matter. But Carla, sensing a kinship and maybe something else, hires Paul on the spot...experience or not.
Carla likes ordering Paul around and uses Paul and his friend's "muscle" and strong-arm tactics to get things done at her place of employment... a Real Estate firm. Carla first utilizes Paul's larcenous skills by having him steal some papers from a co-worker and thus make him (the co-worker) look like a jerk to their boss and Carla a hero. Paul has ideas of his own also, and when he learns that Carla can read lips he asks for her help to bilk his night employer out of some major cash.
Carla is a great character: a seething mass of contradictions...straight-laced on the surface yet underneath a big mass of resentment and pent-up hate and hostility. Emmanuel Devos does a remarkable job with this role: she's appropriately sheepish and shy when appropriate but check out her eyes...there's a deep morass of something else, something larcenous, perhaps. Carla may be hard of hearing and a stooge for her friends and co-workers...but she ain't no dummy, that's for sure.
Vincent Cassell as Paul is on the one-hand scary as hell looking: greasy hair, tattooed arms yet there is a softness there and Cassell plays both sides of his character with aplomb: most of the time both in the same scene. The combination of his raw, brute-like force and street smarts and her intelligence and hostility makes for an unbeatable combination for a screen pair like we've never before seen.
Jacques Audiard has made a film about two down-and-out people who use crime as a way out of their predicament and, though it isn't at all easy... it works because, though Paul and Carla can grate on your nerves, they have a concrete plan that Carla makes sure is followed to a "T."
Ultimately, it is all about Charm....isn't it? And Audiard has made sure that Paul and Carla come off as the heroes of his film....downtrodden, desperate even, but sweet, charming and remarkably organized and intelligent. Like I've always said: It's always about the details, details, details.

Rating:
Summary: 'Read My Lips' is a treat for any intelligent movie watcher
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: 'Read My Lips' is a treat for any intelligent movie watcher
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Smell my shirt
Review: 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.