A good idea receives a disappointingly ragged execution in "Read My Lips."
It draws upon the anti-romance of two outsiders as they build a co-dependence through a series of rescues.
Carla Bhem (Emmanuelle Devos) can barely hear, but she's proficient at reading lips.
Although not nearly so plain as the script insists, she's the kind of co-worker and neighbor ignored or taken advantage of by everyone else. She's a sensitive doormat with just enough pride to resist articulating her needs.
A secretary for a construction company, Carla is so tense and overworked she faints. The boss authorizes her to hire an assistant.
That should be a man, she explains at an employment bureau — 25 to 30, not too tall, nice hands. You get the idea her criteria for a co-worker lean closer to a personals ad?
The scruffy Paul Angeli (Vincent Cassel) turns up for an interview. He's obviously underqualified and a liar, but she's intrigued — partly, we sense, because there's something rough about him and perhaps partly because she's so obviously superior.
Besides, he's fresh out of prison. He has a parole officer named Masson (Olivier Perrier) and a big debt with a club owner-gangster named Marchand (Olivier Gourmet).
She enlists him in her debt because she wants at least token power over him — over someone . But Paul doesn't develop much useful respect for her until she's able to help him on his terms — to run interference for him and to use binoculars to read the lips of thugs who have a garbage bag of dirty money Paul covets.
Jacques Audiard ("Venus Beauty Institute") directed "Read My Lips" from a screenplay he co-wrote with Tonino Benacquista.
To the extent it works at all, the film is indebted to Devos' portrayal of a sympathetic character who suppresses her needs without ever giving up.
What's incomprehensible is her attraction to Paul, who, as played by Cassel, exudes grime but none of the animal qualities that can make otherwise sane women behave senselessly.
Audiard shot "Read My Lips" with hand-held cameras in so many close-ups that the urge throughout is to back off a few feet and breathe clean air.
The film suggests that Carla is liberated by her experiences and that her newfound courage promises dividends. Few of us watching from an objective distance would reach such conclusions.
| 'Read My Lips' |
Director: Jacques Audiard
Stars: Emmanuelle Devos, Vincent Cassel, Olivier Gourmet
MPAA Rating: Unrated, but R in nature because of violence, sex and brief language
