Jacques Audiard’s Read My Lips stars French film regular Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Devos in an untypical film involving misery, loneliness, murder and robbery.
The first thing to note I guess is that the DVD version I have is a UK copy, which states it is 113 minutes long. According to IMDB (sadly the only place to find out movie info with immediacy) states that the UK release is 118 minutes. I’m not sure where those 5 minutes went, but as far as I can tell, there is no uncut release of this, or uncensored. Any violence or brutality displayed seems to be full force in the version I saw, and every bit enjoyable. If there is a longer version, I can’t see it adding or changing much to the story.
Read my Lips is very much a remarkably intelligent thriller. It begins with Carla, an office secretary who is treated rather poorly by her ignorant and egocentric co-workers. They treat her desk like a bin, leaving behind plastic cups of coffee for her to throw away when she returns. Sometimes they leave it when she’s there, and the timid Carla says nothing, and instead throws the cups away. She is shy, a recluse, and not exactly the most vocal person, making her almost invisible to everyone else. A case in point is when she falls to the floor, and everyone carries on about their business.
Of course, the other element in Carla’s life is the fact that she is partially deaf. This has both advantages and disadvantages as the director carefully displays. Being able to see another side to a character which is muted in sound, displays empathy rather than sympathy or pity. Carla intelligently takes her hearing aid off when looking after her friend’s baby as the baby cries, and she feeds the child. When the noise in the dance clubs become to loud, she removes her hearing aids, and the world that was initially chaotic and destructive to her ears becomes tranquil yet animated. It’s a superb contrast to a world that can appear so different, just by removing one of the senses we take for granted.
The artificial nature of the relationship between Carla and Paul incites the suggestion that they want to get it together
Carla’s life changes when she is asked to hire help in the form of an assistant, as coping with the obnoxious office workers becomes a second job in itself. The assistant in question is Paul (Cassel) who has left prison after two years. Paul is a criminal and lying is second nature, Carla senses something and understands that, like her, he is just trying to get on with things. Having lied on his job application, Carla decides to help Paul out of personal interest, or perhaps out of generosity, I think that’s up to the viewers to decide. However, as we start to see a strange friendship-cum-relationship develop between Carla and Paul, that connection spills over into overt behaviour on the part of Carla, and at one point Paul.
Devos’s performance is fantastic as Carla; a hard of hearing, shy, misguided and lonely office worker turned co-conspirator in a robbery. Her character never dramatically changes, nor does she change completely as a person until right at the very end of the film. She is afraid of men in general it seems, keen to succeed in the office, having worked there for 3 years, but unable to draw out enough confidence within herself to challenge the men around her. That is until one man takes a project away from Carla for his own gain, which infuriates Carla into asking a criminal favour from Paul. Paul is defiantly reluctant as it would affect his parole, and this initially refuses. Something in Paul makes him decide otherwise, seeing how distraught she was, and perhaps in return for what he did to her, he carries out the crime which ensures that Carla gains credit for the project.
Cassel also excels at a man trying to change, but knows he is what he is. The office life is not for him, and all he knows his the criminal underworld and how to make money quickly and illegally. A liar, a thief, and yet there is a similarity in his life that matches Carla’s: loneliness & despair. It’s this that perhaps drives him to help Carla, and in turn trust her just enough to enable him to pull of a robbery from someone that he knows would kill him. Carla is also quite naive, and this also plays into Paul’s hands as a way to pull off his scheme.
Location shots, and the way it’s filmed overall is quite impressive. Cameras are rolled during the day and night, capturing every day people. There also seems to be a rather gritty nature in the locales that are filmed, desolate, isolated and derelict in appearance and content; a metaphor for the lives of Carla and Paul? In any case, it provides a much harder, much more real feeling to what is presented on screen, and very much welcome.
Things take another turn when a man named Marchand turns up to pick up 70K from Paul. After knocking him senseless, Paul agrees to work for Marchand at a bar until his debt is paid off. Carla’s infatuation begins to grow with Paul just as he decides to leave to work at the bar, not being able to hack the job of working in an office. She pesters him to say, trying to provide an incentive to stay, but to no avail. That is until Paul needs Carla.
The film has a tender unraveling of both the relationship between the two lonesome souls, and also the snowballing of events that gradually occur throughout. There are several sub plots that carefully interweaved so as not to distract from the core plot. It’s never intrusive, and they play themselves as subplots with a start and end, developing themselves over the course of the film.
Carla’s life changes when she is asked to hire help in the form of an assistant, as coping with the obnoxious office workers becomes a second job
I’ve read this film carries some elements to Hitchcock. I think this is a fair comparison, but it’s also rather limited. There are certain instances where Hitchcock’s influence could be seen as quite obvious, but I think the ideas are executed in a refreshing way. Carla has the ability to lip read, and this fact doesn’t make itself important until a third of the film through. Elements of it are thrown through the earlier dialogue, with visual hints as to her ability to read what people are saying, and to understand physical gestures between two people. However, it’s only when the element of spying and plotting come into the fray that her ability is focused on. When it is used, it is used incredibly well, turning what could be seen as a vulnerable victim with a handicap, into a viciously clever, and vindictive bitch who holds all the cards.
It’s very interesting to watch an understated thriller, as the two terms together are rather oxymoronic. Thriller’s in essence take you for a wild ride with lots of twists and turns, and Read My Lips does this with a wonderful subtlety you really don’t expect. It doesn’t open as a thriller, and for the first third of the film, you don’t expect it to be a thriller, but it is what it becomes with some very intelligent script writing. The romance, much like the thrills are also understated. The artificial nature of the relationship between Carla and Paul incites the suggestion that they want to get it together, but neither seems to have the mental capacity to initiate anything without it turning clumsy or uncomfortable. It’s tragic, but amusing to watch.
I would highly recommend this brilliant piece of French cinema. It’s gradual pace, ability to articulate and yet cohesively integrate smaller plots around a core plot, and memorable performances by Cassel, and most of all Devos make this a very entertaining film which takes an excellent morbid nosedive towards the end.
Verdict: Stirling performances, great script, wonderful French cinema.