Read My Lips

Jacques Audiard's film, which begins with two people using each other. Carla is a secretary at a property firm. She wears a hearing aid and nobody in the office respects her; she does her work and nobody notices. When she is entitled to an assistant, she picks Paul, just out of prison. He has no experience at all. The two soon see they can be useful to each other. Carla has a skill: she can read lips. Paul has a debt, and to clear it he needs information. The clever thing is using that skill as both a device of tension and a matter of character. Carla can switch her hearing on when she wants it and off when she does not; the sound design carries this straight to the viewer, and scenes drop into silence when she turns the aid off. Their relationship stays equally uncertain: who is using whom, and at what point it becomes an attachment, the film does not answer. Emmanuelle Devos plays Carla and Vincent Cassel plays Paul. Devos won a César for the part. A strong example for anyone who likes French crime cinema and thrillers built on character. For a viewer expecting a fast crime film, the narrative stays in the office for a long time and the tension starts late.