Movie Review: READ MY LIPS
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READ MY LIPS
Reviewed 8/13/2002

Though the action in film noir is always driven by men, its emotional center is always the Woman: is she martyred Madonna (Ingrid Bergman, NOTORIOUS), fallen Eve (Faye Dunaway, CHINATOWN), or scheming Lilith (Mary Astor, THE MALTESE FALCON; Kathleen Turner, BODY HEAT; Linda Fiorentino, THE LAST SEDUCTION). Unless the author opts for immediate exposing her a succubus (Theresa Russell, BLACK WIDOW), the noir film has three distinct stages:

  1. Setup. Lug meets mystery Woman.
  2. Dance. Lug is charmed, seduced, ensnared by Woman.
  3. Chase. Lug finds out Woman's True Nature (choose from above), whereupon someone chases someone to a Showdown.
For this to work, Lug must be an audience surrogate, and Woman must be mystery, by turns alluring and naïve, always hypnotic. In READ MY LIPS, we first meet our Woman. Long-suffering wounded-bird secretary Carla (Emmanuelle Devos, unknown in America) works in a modern French dysfunctional office: big open spaces with reverberating glass surfaces, no-privacy workstations, coffee-spilling, credit-hogging exploitive sexist commission salesmen, and a boss (patron in French) disconnected from reality and his own floundering organization. She wears hearing aids ("I used to be deaf, now I'm almost deaf," she shyly explains), her condition beautifully filmed and gracefully used. Overworked, under-appreciated, she gains permission to hire an assistant.

Enter the Lug.

Paul (versatile Vincent Cassel of PACTE DES LOUPS and CRIMSON RIVERS, once again gamely putting his toucan's beak in fist's bloody way) has no legally employable skills, having been in stir for two years. But something about his lost-dog manner appeals to Carla, who seems him as both pet (sheepish eyes and embarrassed retreat from a well-meaning but uninvited grope) and weapon (broken nose, street smarts). In that combination, she sees her chance to gain intra-office revenge. What if this happened? she muses, and Paul makes it so. Now she owes him a favor.

Paul coaxes Carla onto an apartment rooftop, bundled in her sensible down jacket, binoculars in hand, lip-reading as across the way, a loan shark who holds Paul in thrall plots a crime. Clumsily, uncomprehendingly, they become a team - she brains, he brawn. These scenes are the movie's best, where voyeurism and disability and the ghost of unvoiced sexuality meld (the French title, "on my lips", as in, I read on my lips, is much more evocative than its translation): suspenseful, sensual, complex.

But, but …

To satisfy, the film must resolve. Who is Carla: martyred Madonna, fallen Eve, or passive-aggressive Lilith? Who is Paul: victim, conspirator, or mastermind? For all her tics and appealing sensitivity, Carla is ultimately an enigma. For all his cow eyes, Paul is ultimately a lump. The movie revolves around two characters who neither reveal nor define. Meanwhile, two much more thematically interesting characters (the loan shark, and Paul's parole officer) go through gut-wrenching changes … offstage, unseen, unexplored, uncomprehended.

It is better to aim high and fail than aim for nothing and succeed. Even as we peek at the Indiglo, we know there is much to like in READ MY LIPS. Award it an honorable near miss.

ã Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith