Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres) Reviews
Audiard has created one of those rare, commercially released movies that trades in actual, honest-to-god surprise.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Having changed into action gear, the picture never looks back, leaving two people who seemed wonderfully unique to do things that are cinematically trite.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
See it now, before the inevitable Hollywood remake flattens out all its odd, intriguing wrinkles.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Arizona Republic
Top Critic
It's neither as romantic nor as thrilling as it should be. But it offers plenty to ponder and chew on as its unusual relationship slowly unfolds.
| Original Score: 4/5
Read My Lips works on many levels, one being a fresh take on the 'office romance,' but a romance that evolves in a strictly nontraditional way.
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| Original Score: 4/4
Thoughtful, provocative and entertaining.
| Original Score: 3/4
It's erotic, suspenseful and built around two surprising characters. Even better, it doesn't feel like every other thriller we've ever seen.
| Original Score: B+
Fascinating and transgressive love story.
Read My Lips is not a heist film, a thriller, a twisted romance, a film noir or a character study, but a unique concoction that bends all these genres to its vision.
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| Original Score: 4/4
There's real visual charge to the filmmaking, and a strong erotic spark to the most crucial lip-reading sequence.
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| Original Score: B
A sharp, inventive mix of love story and film noir.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Overall, it's the best French thriller since With a Friend Like Harry two years ago.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Read My Lips is not about deafness, lip-reading, crime or sex, but about that discovery; the plot simply provides the rails on which it rides.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
The powerful success of Read My Lips with such provocative material shows why, after only three films, director/co-writer Jacques Audiard, though little known in this country, belongs in the very top rank of French filmmakers.
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| Original Score: 4/5
This is a finely written, superbly acted offbeat thriller.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
The pleasure of Read My Lips is like seeing a series of perfect black pearls clicking together to form a string. We're drawn in by the dark luster.
The attraction between these two marginal characters is complex from the start -- and, refreshingly, stays that way.
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| Original Score: A-
Read My Lips is to be viewed and treasured for its extraordinary intelligence and originality as well as its lyrical variations on the game of love.
Throughout, Mr. Audiard's direction is fluid and quick.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Read My Lips isn't just scary, charming and delightfully unpredictable - it's also smarter and subtler than any new movie out there.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Although the movie contains elements of a romantic thriller, it is equally powerful as a drama.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
This offbeat French film is entertaining enough to make headway in art house venues and appears ripe for an American remake.
The movie shifts from workplace melodrama to neo-noir to deadly romantic caper with a bracing absence of cuteness.
Performances this vivid and complex deserve a richer, more imaginative context; it's like seeing Jake Gittes and Evelyn Mulwray shoehorned into Life as a House.
Full Review
| Original Score: 55/100
The plot mechanics of Read My Lips eventually kind of spin into a fairly conventional thriller, but the wildly talented Cassel and the unconventionally alluring Devos give this movie a unique feel.
