READ MY LIPS (Jacques Audiard, 2002)

Reviewed: August 12, 2002

Read My Lips is about two characters battling each other-- one wants Read My Lips to be a love story, the other wants Read My Lips to be a thriller. The result's a mixed bag, a film that bursts onto the field with promise and intrigue, then derails itself in the third quarter with superfluous nonsense and a conventional-as-can-be crime story. Consolation can be found in saturated, loose, plush visuals and a superb lead performance.

Pic follows hearing-impaired secretary Carla (Emmanuelle Devos), its strongest asset. Carla is the kind of character we don't see in movies nearly often enough-- while there's nothing revolutionary about a bright, assertive, lonely woman working in a menial job, trampled and made fun of by her coworkers, Read My Lips sets itself apart by making Carla feisty and physically disabled, yet ultimately willing to act upon her (darker) impulses. The film makes much of the fact Carla's not traditionally attractive (I'm being diplomatic--her coworkers call her ugly, a dog, etc.), indeed a crucial facet which in turn makes the love story all the more believable and poignant. Erstwhile, I'd been unfamiliar with Devos' work. Read My Lips establishes her in my mind as a unique talent who imbues her acting with a slinky charm.

Pic's love story angle begins when Carla needs to hire an assistant, and does so in the form of greaseball, ex-con Vincent Cassel (Cassel turns in a sturdy, if familiar performance). Their pairing's exciting, their chemistry hazily apparent. We're giddy about the prospect Lip's not gonna go the boring "let's do nothing but see how long it takes these two to toss around in bed" route, sensing bigger possibilities.

And therein lies the rub. Yes, the film's handling of sexuality is far more interesting than its handling of crime (admittedly the crime facilitates the sexuality in some ways, but I wish they'd have concocted a more fascinating catalyst). And yes, a few of those bigger possibilities are finally exploited. But unfortunately most of them are squandered, boiled to death and then forgotten in a black cauldron of crime clichés we've all seen a million times previous.

Adding insult to injury: I mentioned the presence of superfluous nonsense, and it's a doozy. There's an entire subplot that's periodically cut to which follows Cassel's parole officer and his missing wife. I grew increasingly furious watching this story unfold, because every single time it was cut to, I violently (futilely) struggled to figure out just what the fuck it has to do with anything. See, the extent of Cassel and Devos' interaction with the parole officer ends less than halfway through the film (and it's extremely minimal, consisting of two scenes). None of the other characters from Read My Lips even enter into the periphery of the parole officer's story. Certain I was blindly missing something revelatory, as the soon as the end credits began rolling I turned to my companion. But before I could speak, I was cut off--

"What the hell did that parole officer and his wife have to do with anything?"
"I have no fucking idea, I was about to ask you the same thing!"

In the interim between seeing Read My Lips and writing this review, no less than five people have personally come up to me and asked me the same question. If anyone out there has miraculously gleaned some kind of meaning from this parole subplot, please email me ASAP (and then promptly join the CIA).

Recently it struck me how similar Read My Lips is -- in its broad strokes -- to the Wachowski Brothers' masterful Bound. Both involve gritty ex-convicts who team up with a demure-ish, yet surprisingly tough chick to rip off a bag of money from mobsters. But while Bound's crime story/love story fusion felt organic and vital (for a variety of reasons, including the Wachowski Brothers' nimble structuring, hair-trigger maneuvering, blazingly kick-ass images, Joe Pantoliano's amazing performance and the pic's unrivaled eroticism), Read My Lips' love/crime combo plays mostly limp and awkward.

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