PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Andy (film-critic) After erasing my thoughts nearly twenty-seven times, there is a feeling that I can now conquer this review for the complex French drama, "Read My Lips". Having written over five hundred reviews, I have never found myself at such a loss of words as I did with director Jacques Audiard's subtle, yet inspirational love story. Thought was poured over what was loved and hated about this film, and while the "loves" overpowered, it was the elements that were hated that sparked further debate within my mind. "Read My Lips" is a drama. To be more precise, is a character driven drama which fuses social uncertainty with crime lords with the doldrums of everyday office work. Here is where this review begins to crumble, it is all of these items – but it is more…much, much more. As a viewer, you are pulled in instantly by Emmanuelle Devos' portrayal of this fragile woman named Carla, whose strength is lost to the males in her office as well as her hearing difficulty. Audiard introduces us harshly to her world by removing sound from the screen whenever she is not wearing her aid, causing an immediate unrest, not only from the characters within the film, but to those watching. Without sound, the world is left open to any possibility, and that is frightening.As we watch this difficult and unsettling woman setting into her life, we are then uprooted and given the opportunity to meet Paul (played exquisitely by Vincent Cassel), a slicked-back hair, mustache-wearing lanky man who was just released from prison, homeless, jobless, and forced by his parole officer to get a job. This is how Carla and Paul meet. There is that moment of instant, unsettling attraction. The one where we think she loves him, but he is dark (and here is where it gets even more fun) – and where we think he loves her, but she is dark. The constant role reversal creates the tone of the unknown. Who, as viewers, are we to feel the most sympathy for? Paul sleeps in the office, Carla helps him; Carla looses a contract to a rival co-worker, Paul helps her; Carla's ability to read people's lips comes in handy for a make-shift idea for Paul. The continual jumps back and forth keep you on your chair, waiting for the possibility of some light to shine through this dark cave. It never does. Audiard cannot just allow this story to take place, he continually introduces us to more characters; one just as seedy as the next. Even our rock, our solid foundation with the parole officer is in question when his wife goes missing – a subplot to this film that at first angered me, but upon further debate was a staple finale for this film. Yet none of this could have happened if it weren't for our characters. Devos' solemn and homely look is breathtaking, as she changes her image for Paul; the truth of her beauty is discovered. Paul, the wildcard in the film, continues to seemingly use and abuse the friendship for his final endgame. Then, just as we assume one, Carla takes on one last shape.Audiard knows he has amazing actors capturing his characters. Cassel and Devos could just play cards the entire time and I would still be sitting at the end of my chair. The story, probably the weakest part of this film, is at first random. The interwoven stories seem unconnected at first, but Audiard lets them connect bit by bit. Again, the entire parole officer segment was tangent, but that final scene just solidified the ends to the means. Not attempting to sound vague, but this complex (yet utterly simple) story is difficult to explain. There is plenty happening, but it is up to you to connect the pieces. A favorite scene is when Carla is attempting to discover where some money is being held. That use of sound and scene was brilliant. It was tense, it was dramatic, and it was like watching a who-dun-it mystery unfold before your eyes.Overall, I initially though this was a mediocre French film that I could easily forget about when it was over – I was proved wrong. "Read My Lips" opens the floor for discussion, not just with the characters, but the situations. One will find themselves rooting for Carla in one scene, and Paul in the next. When a discovery is made in Paul's apartment by Carla, I found myself deeply angry. Audiard brought true emotion to the screen with his characters and development, and what he was lacking in plot – the actors were able to carry. I can easily suggest this film to anyone, but be prepared; this isn't a one time viewing film. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.Grade: **** out of *****

adrian_stranik Carla works for a property developer's where she excels in being unattractive, unappreciated and desperate. She is also deaf.Her boss offers to hire in somebody to alleviate her heavy workload so she uses the opportunity to secure herself some male company. Help arrives in the form of Paul, a tattooed hoodlum fresh out of prison and clearly unsuited to the mannered routine of an office environment.An implicit sexual tension develops between the two of them and Carla is determined to keep him on despite his reluctance to embrace the working week. When Carla is edged out of an important contract she was negotiating by a slimy colleague she exploits Paul's criminality by having him steal the contract back. The colleague quickly realises that she's behind the robbery, but when he confronts her, Paul's readiness to punch people in the face comes in handy too - but this thuggery comes at a price. Paul is given a 'going over' by some mob acquaintances as a reminder about an unpaid debt. He formulates a plan which utilises Carla's unique lip reading abilities to rip-off a gang of violent bank robbers. It's now Carla's turn to enter a frightening new world.The fourth feature from director Jacques Audiard, 'READ MY LIPS' begins as a thoroughly engaging romantic drama between two marginalised losers only to shift gears halfway through into an edgy thriller where their symbiotic shortcomings turn them into winners. The leads are excellent; effortlessly convincing us that this odd couple could really connect. Carla's first meeting with Paul is an enjoyable farce in which she attempts to circumnavigate his surly reticence and jailbird manners only to discover that he was, until very recently, a jailbird. Emmanuelle Devos, who plays Carla, has that almost exclusive ability to go from dowdy to gorgeous and back again within a frame. Vincent Cassel plays Paul as a cornered dog who only really seems at home when he's receiving a beating or concocting the rip-off that is likely to get him killed.Like many French films, 'READ MY LIPS' appears, at first, to be about nothing in particular until you scratch beneath the surface and find that it's probably about everything. The only bum note is a subplot concerning the missing wife of Paul's parole officer; a device that seems contrived only to help steer the main thrust of the story into a neat little feelgood cul-de-sac.It was the French 'New Wave' of the 60's that first introduced the concept of 'genre' to film making and I've always felt that any medium is somewhat compromised when you have to use a system of labels to help define it; so it's always a pleasure to discover a film that seems to transcend genre, or better still, defy it.

Henry Fields Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a deaf girl, but she can hear thanks to one of those ear-devices. She works at a property developer enterprise as a secretary, and she seems to be the laughing stock of the office, the weirdo. She's shy, solitary, she dresses like a nun, and she's definitely isolated. Her saturday night's date usually is her best girlfriend's baby. Once she was a totally deaf person, and now she isn't; but it seems like that isolation typical of the deaf goes beyond the hearing itself. Now she's needing a personal assistant at the office, and applies for one at the Employee Office. They send Paul. Paul (Vincent Cassell) is an ex-convict, an ex-thief. He gotta find a job and change his ways in order not to come back to jail. Carla gives him the job, and there begins an strange relationship between them: she desperately needs someone to share her life with, she needs to fall in love. He has some old debts to pay (that kind of debts that you MUST pay), and she'll find some Carla's skills so useful in order to solve his problems. Though it was released in 2001 in France, it has just reached Spanish's screens (of course, Steve Seagal's and Van Damme's productions get to our screens right on time); and it's been a great surprise. When you're thinking about quitting on watching new cinema releases suddenly you find movies just like Sur Mes Levres. A dramatic thriller, an story of losers, and of people in search of redemption and happiness. Emmanuelle Devos displays one of the best performances of the latest french cinema: another cold-as-ice french actress that makes a hit out of her lack of expressiveness and his strange beauty; her eyes, her lips, they say it all. Those scenes in wich she's talking to herself, sort of making a rehearsal of his next date with Paul, are so tender and funny. Mr. Cassell (Monica Belluci's husband -can you believe it???-) plays the perfect ex-convict: he REALLY looks and acts like he's just left his dark cell, no doubt his phisique helps a lot. His pressence in the screen is just amazing. PS: There's sort of a parallel story in Sur Mes Levres: some sequences refers to Paul's social worker, a mid-age man whose wife has suddenly dissapeared. Ok, this story makes no sense among the rest of the movie (or maybe I missed something), but it does not smudge the final restults. My rate: 8/10

Ralph Michael Stein I settled back to watch "Read My Lips," a plate of Freedom Fries before me. The food was quickly forgotten as I became engrossed by director and co-writer Jacques Audiard's original and superb thriller.Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a secretary at a firm that develops major building projects. She actually has some significant responsibilities that don't often fall to secretaries and she's capable and ambitious. And thwarted by a male hierarchy that will exploit but not reward her.Work piling up faster than she can handle it, Carla is told to hire a secretary. Enter ex-con and general layabout Paul (Vincent Cassel). He lies about his skills and in fact has none that any legitimate enterprise might require. After an initial serious misunderstanding by Paul as to Carla's interest in him, the two become allies. A quirky friendship starts. In a stunt that would have made a real Carla a major contender on "The Apprentice," she trumps her egotistic male adversary at work with Paul's connivance. Exit the rival.Carla is virtually deaf without her hearing aid. With it she hears almost normally. She turns the hearing aid off to isolate herself from unpleasant sounds and annoying people. She's also very lonely. A heroic makeup effort was made to have her appear plain but she's truly beautiful. She hasn't a boyfriend. She babysits so a friend can have a liaison (it IS a French movie) Worse and humiliatingly, she accedes to a girlfriend's plea that she hang out somewhere while that married friend has it off with her paramour in Carla's bed. Not nice.As Carla and Paul get to know each other better, the barely repressed larcenous side of the not so former felon emerges. There's a side story, by the way, of Paul's relationship with his parole officer which neatly complements the main plot and has its own big surprise ending."Read My Lips?" Ingenious Paul recognizes that Carla's ability to read lips, even from a considerable distance, is more than the amusing parlor trick it first seems to be.From there a caper develops. Enough said.Paul and Carla are a true criminal oddball couple. She wants love but will also accept money. He wants her, sort of, but business must come before possible erotic satiation. Together Cassel and Devos are strong actors carrying an unusual crime tale to its end very convincingly.Rent it or buy it but if you enjoy a good crime story you'll go for "Read My Lips." And you may well want to watch it several times: I do.9/10