Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres) poster & wallpaper

Emmanuelle Devos, Olivia Bonamy, Olivier Gourmet

Young secretary Carla is a long-time employee of a property development company. Loyal and hardworking, first to arrive and last to leave, Carla is beginning to chafe at the limitations of her career ...( read more  read more... )and is looking to move up. But as a 35-five-year-old woman with a hearing deficiency, she is not sure how to climb out of her humdrum life, though she is confident in her own abilities. Into her life comes Paul Angeli, a new trainee she decides to hire. Paul is 25 years old and completely unskilled, but Carla covers for him when the need arises because of his other qualities - he's a thief, fresh out of jail and very good-looking. It's a case of good meeting bad.

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82% liked it

4,029 ratings

Critics

97% liked it

94 critics

R, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Jacques Audiard

Release Date: July 5, 2002

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DVD Release Date: July 22, 2003

Stats: 217 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (217)

  • rebvodka042099
    July 23, 2008
    rebvodka042099
    I'm not too excited about this film, but gives you material to talk about. A very different Vincent Cassel side is revealed though in this film.
  • habitualdamnation
    May 1, 2008
    habitualdamnation
    Fuckin ace.
  • FangsFirst
    April 25, 2008
    FangsFirst
    It's strange, I never even noted the production or release years of this film and, due to a colour filter used on the cover, was under the impression it was from the 60s or 70s. Of course, it was 30 or 40 years later that it was actually made, and that results in a completely dif...( read more)ferent framework for the filmmakers to start from. I felt some tingle of recognition from the name Vincent Cassel, but I couldn't place it. Looking up his credits, I'm still not sure why. Yeah, I've seen Le Pacte des Loups (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Elizabeth and want to see The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, but I can't think of him in any of those movies.

    Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a mostly deaf woman working as a secretary in an office. She uses two earpieces to manage normal hearing, keeping her hair down over them out of a certain shyness about this, but is still trod upon--more likely due to her quiet demeanour, politeness and occupational position than her disability, though that remains a likely culprit as well.She reads lips--hence the title--but does primarily use her aids. When she finally faints one day at work, her boss offers to hire an assistant for her--kind of a pleasant surprise, a helpful boss with all of these disrespectful coworkers?--and she accepts this. Her friend Annie (Olivia Bonamy) mentions her very, very active sex life and re-ignites Carla's lust, leading her to specifically request a young, male in particular for the assistant's position she's been allowed to hire. Enter Paul (Vincent Cassel), a rather dishevelled gentleman with a grubby moustache who says he has come to take the position on. Immediately defensive, Carla interviews him and finds him attractive, but is wary of the fact that he has just left prison. Still, she finds herself helping him to temporary housing, new clothes and his job--for which he is horribly undereducated--leading him into a feeling of obligation, which he first mistakes for something she wants only privately and is too shocked to accept when offered. Instead, she asks for his help as an ex-thief, to regain the work--and associated benefits--that she has been denied by self-serving coworkers. Soon the two are entangled in using their respective talents to benefit the other in illicit ways, growing closer in a dark, lusty way, rather than a cute romance--though certainly there's a bit of that kind of chemistry between the two actors.

    Devos is excellent in her role, showing a strong woman cowed too many times, who remains just as submissive in most situations but will take a dominant position eventually when given the tools and opportunity to take it. Paul is reluctant to get involved in illicit activities again, taking his parole seriously, with hawk-eyed parole officer Masson (Olivier Perrier) interviewing him regularly about his progress. He is drawn in unwillingly though, and Cassel manages these transitions just as well as Devos does hers, the two circling each other in a mating dance that almost seems to bear points of hostility to prove oneself to the projected mate. It's fascinating, and with a supporting cast composed primarily of unseemly characters like loan shark Marchand (Olivier Gourmet)* that manages to push and prod the two of them into increasingly dangerous territory, a movie that starts out about the social position inhabited by the disabled rapidly turns into a clever, intelligent thriller of intense suspense that uses audio cues to manipulate the audience into sharing in Carla's way of hearing the world--audio is muffled when her aids are off, and accompanied by the rustle of them being replaced when she replaces them--and brings us ever closer to her view of everything.

    *OK, what is this, "Oliver Foodterm" movie? I know, I know, they're French words with those associations in English, but two in one movie?
  • thefiercepanda
    January 8, 2009
    thefiercepanda
    2002 Seattle International Film Festival
  • AndySitzerFan
    June 10, 2008
    AndySitzerFan
    I wish I could watch every movie ever made but I sadly don't have the time. I'm not interested in this movie because I don't think I'll like it or don't know enough about it to think I might like it. I may still end up seeing it some day though.
  • kaigross
    May 19, 2008
    kaigross
    This is one of my all time favorites. Cassel rocks a tremendous moustache throughout.
  • Saiyandali
    March 21, 2008
    Saiyandali
    This movie is really weird but is good. Worth renting and even buying.
  • MECreviews
    March 18, 2008
    MECreviews
    I didn't like this film.
  • sleepykiss
    February 4, 2008
    sleepykiss
    Better than expected. My 1st VCassel flick (still havent seen LA HAINE). ED is quite good too, tho I really didnt care for her in LA MOUSTACHE for some reason lol.

View All Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres) Reviews

Critic Reviews

May 4, 2005
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

May be the finest thriller/romance hybrid of the new century. full review

July 26, 2002
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Read My Lips is not a heist film, a thriller, a twisted romance, a film noir or a character study, but a unique concoction that bends all these genres to its vision. full review

July 25, 2002
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

A sharp, inventive mix of love story and film noir. full review

July 19, 2002
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Read My Lips is not about deafness, lip-reading, crime or sex, but about that discovery; the plot simply provides the rails on which it rides. full review

July 5, 2002
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Throughout, Mr. Audiard's direction is fluid and quick. full review

View more Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • thieverycorporation
    May 31, 2009
    thieverycorporation
    Emmanuelle Devos gives a great performance. This is an above average suspense well worth the investment of watching.
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