Read My Lips aka Sur Mes Lèvres, written by Tonino Benacquista and Jacques Audiard, directed by the latter, 9 out of 10

Read My Lips aka Sur Mes Lèvres, written by Tonino Benacquista and Jacques Audiard, directed by the latter

9 out of 10

Notes and thoughts on other books are available at:

-              https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E and   http://realini.blogspot.ro/

This is a phenomenal film.

Jacques Audiard is the director and writer and he is a genius.

He has won the most important cinema prize, The Palme d’Or in 2015, the Cannes Festival Grand Prize of the Jury in 2009, the prize for Best Screenplay in 1996, at the same paramount festival that selects the very best.

He is also twice winner of the BAFTA – probably the second most important awards- for Best Film not in the English Language.

Jacques Audiard has won many other recognitions of an outstanding work.

And his masterpieces include:

-          Dheepan, Un prophète, De rouille et D’os, De battre mon coeur s'est arête

The stars of Read My Lips are no less magnificent: Vincent Cassel, Olivier Gourmet and Emmanuelle Devos, the later a protagonist in the aforementioned De battre Mon coeur s'est arête.

Emmmanuelle Devos has the role of a secretary in a firm that does not recognize her hard work, dominated as it is by men.

Carla has a disability that is more than compensated for by the fact that, if she does not hear very well, she can:

-          Read Their Lips

Paul Angeli is the man that arrives at the firm, looking for a job that may depend on Carla, who is well meaning.

But the scene of the interview is funny:

-          Paul Angeli is fresh out of prison, with a rather vulgar, or perhaps just colloquial manner of speaking

-          Carla is naïve and ignorant in this area and she is seriously asking the proper questions that are just not appropriate in this case

-          Do you know how to work with “l’ordinateur”? and the man says yes, but when asked about the type, he invents something about “German ones”

And they arrive at the reason why he had not worked in two years and this is where it gets both sad and humorous:

-          Parce que j’etais en Fluery…

-          ….

-          J'étais à la Centrale

-          La Centrale de quoi?

So he is trying to tell her that he had been in jail- glasshouse, slammer, joint- only using the terms he is familiar with.

But she has no idea of what he is talking about.

-          The Beauty and the Beast…

But she does not just hire him, but works harder to protect the man that, although in the interview declared that he knows so much, in reality he cannot even operated the copying machine that blocks under his supervision.

The two get closer together, after an initial low point, wherein the former convict thought the woman wants him to have sex with her.

After some time, Paul Angeli starts working as a bartender in a place controlled by a suspicious man, Marchand.

He is portrayed by the fabulous Olivier Gourmet and Carla is called by her friend to read the lips of these people.

And from here events are fast succeeding, with danger increasing until a maximum is reached, given this is the underworld.

Carla is attacked and as this villain is trying to rape her in the car and hurting her, Paul arrives and beats the evil man.

The organized crime group to which Marchand belongs is ruthless and at the climax, the two friends are in extreme danger.

Excellent film.