Film Reviews

Read My Lips

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Emmanuelle Devos
• Details: Fra / 117 minutes / (No Cert).

Suffering from impaired hearing and the bad humour of her colleagues, company secretary Carla is not particularly happy. Although her life revolves around work, her boss notices that she's having trouble coping, so he insists that she get a new assistant. One of the applicants for the job is Paul, a recently paroled con, who has little understanding of the demands of the modern workplace. Despite his lack of qualifications, an intrigued Carla gives him the job, and the pair develop a strange understanding. However, it isn't long before Paul begins to slip back into his old ways, and a willing Carla acts as his accomplice. For the most part, 'Read My Lips' is a very well acted and reasonably suspenseful drama. Audiard seems to enjoy playing with the audiences' expectations and the focus of the film changes abruptly midway through. This decision means that the movie adopts all of the characteristics of a conventional thriller, and it's here that things taper off a little (just a little, mind you). However, the constant that remains throughout is the ambiguous relationship between Carla and Paul, and his two main actors handle it brilliantly. Worth a look.

Review by Garreth Murphy