Read My Lips (Jacques Audiard, 2001)

Read My Lips (Dir: Jacques Audiard, 2001) comes remarkably close to film perfection. Many of my favourite, top 10 type films are from the 40s or 50s and there aren't many contemorary films that come close. This however is one of them. It ticks the boxes on plot, script, visuals, acting, tension, a little bit of slightly dark romance. Ding, ding, ding! It's got it all.



I think I saw it for the first time having seen Audiard's later film, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, which I also enjoyed. In looking to see what other films he had directed I found this one, and didn't expect to like it as much, but it exceeded my expectations entirely.



I once dated a man who, culturally speaking, only seemed to be interested in gangster movies and books about Yardies. While crime and criminals are undoubtedly quite fascinating, and some gangster movies are very entertaining, Goodfellas for example is a glorious film, after a couple of years of frequently being subjected to them after a jaunt to Blockbuster I really felt I’d had enough.

It helps that Read My Lips is not a conventional crime film. None of your old “career criminal does one final job before going clean” nonsense for M. Audiard. No, instead we have the concepts of what might drive a law-abiding woman to crime and what might drive an ex-con back to it. The criminal aspect, however, merely sets the scene and drives the plot but the film’s most interesting theme for me is that of isolation and loneliness.



Carla is almost entirely deaf which separates her from the world around her leading to colleagues and acquaintances to take advantage of her and mocking her until she reaches breaking point. And Paul’s isolation, due to his imprisonment, puts him in a position where he becomes initially subservient to a woman who he would have seen as his inferior in any other context.

While the plot machinations might seem theoretically clunky the film has enough style to carry them off. Basically what we’ve got is: Ex-con gets job for deaf girl. Deaf girl hates her bosses. Guilt trips ex-con into intimidating colleague. Ex-con owes money. Guilt trips girl into lip reading in order to help him plan robbery. During which they undertake a slightly twisted will they/won’t they romantic journey. With a slightly strange side story about his parole officer having done something untoward with his wife and sitting round in his pants a lot with his gut hanging out...



The film is so taut and tense and seedy and sexy and gripping in a way that few manage to carry off. And one of the main reasons has to be through the impeccable casting of France’s very own, Mr Vincent Casell as Paul. As you can see he is not styled to be an attractive character. He is dirty, intimidating and threatening but through Vincent’s latent charm you can tell why there is enough sexual chemistry to choke on between the two main characters. While I do have some friends who like a pretty boy most women I know go week at the knees for a bit of rough around the edges, ugly-beautiful brutal manliness as he epitomises. Seriously, someone should write a thesis on the mysteries of female sexuality and attraction in relation to Vincent Cassell. The man has pure female catnip running through his veins. Grrrrr!

Anyway, phew, where was I?



Emmanuelle Devos as Carla is also a delight. She is by turns both sympathetic and mean. Having been treated badly by those around her she thinks nothing of manipulating the one person who is perceived as being lower than her. But her loneliness and guileless attempts at finding affection ultimately make you warm to her.

Particuarly in a film where the (really) bad guys are repulsive and utterly without charm. It is a film where nothing is black and white or entirely transparent. People's motives and actions aren't always obvious. And that's what makes it so fascinating. Leave the good guy bad guy simplicity to American cinema. Give me some grimy, opaque, lusty, vigour that this film supplies any day of the week.

I urge you - go see it!

Two Lovers (James Gray, 2008)

I haven't really felt the urge to watch James Gray's earlier films. His interest in people being torn apart by their desire to preserve or corrupt the law just doesn't get me hot under the collar. But for some reason Two Lovers (Dir: James Gray, 2008) lured me in, and I'm so glad it did as I found it a really different, thought provoking, affecting and mature film.

I can be an absolute sucker for a well made chick flick. Priceless with Audrey Tatou is the lightest piece of fluff but I love it all the same. What I don't love about chick flicks is that the depiction of relationships and love are so utterly unrealistic. While we want a bit of escapism, of course, the tendency to gloss over the real life trials and tribulations of finding that one person mean they end up as lightweight fantasy and nothing more.



This is certainly not the problem in Two Lovers. While the central themes are love and relationships the vision is almost unremittingly bleak and for the most part focuses on how they can fuck you up. The film starts with the main character Leonard attempting suicide and then he reconsiders it again later in the film. It tackles loving the wrong person, of whether or not you should open yourself up to love without a consideration for being hurt, how people justify adultery, and the ease rather than the passion of falling in love with a convenient person. It almost feels like a French film the way it takes time over its subject, it is unpeturbed to be examining the minutiae and mundanities that can sometimes be life and love.

But it is undeniably an American film, being set as it is in a Jewish neighbourhood in the far reaches of Brooklyn. But even this sets it apart. While we are so used to seeing New York on the big and small screen to the extent that it is almost a cliche there are still areas of New York that are less familar to a cinema going audience. Brooklyn mostly seems to be depicted as a poor and gritty borough if it is seen on screen at all. But here there is something that is both whimsical, delicately real as we see through Leonard's beautiful and stark black and white photographs, but also representing a trap, an area that people are attached to but also yearn to leave.

Brooklyn is becoming more and more what I think of when I think of New York, with all of my New Yorker friends now living there, and I really can't get enough of seeing it, even though it makes me pine for it and them desperately.


Joaquin Phoenix is startlingly good as Leonard. I have read some reviews that say he is a revelation, but I think he has always had that. Ever since To Die For I have had a real crush on his acting chops. And this is another great, meaty part for him to get them into. Comparing the two characters reveals just how different they are, but he nails them both. What Jimmy and Leonard have in common, though, is a vulnerability and willing to wear their hearts on their sleeve in an almost disturbingly naive way. Even though you can see the mistakes that Leonard makes before he even makes them your heart bleeds for him, and you want him to get what he wants even though you know it will all end in tears.

Which it does. And it doesn't. This is another great thing that makes this film really stand out for me. The ending. Through the second half of the film I was filled with a sense of dread and the final moments stopped me in my tracks to such a degree that even some time after watching the film I don't yet know whether the end is the most glorious end to a film almost ever, or depressing and frustrating and heartbreaking. I think my inability to work it out suggests that it is both. I won't give it away, but if you watch it or have already seen it please share your thoughts.




When it comes to the love interests I found both of the performances outstanding. It is quite rare for a film to have such complicated female roles, but I think I have established that this film is quite unique. Gwyneth Paltrow's character is infinitely more glamourous and screwed up, but she is played believably and you can understand Leonard's draw to a beautiful but unstable woman. It is nice to see Gwyneth actually acting again, and in a pretty gritty role that reminds just what a good actress she can be. Vinessa Shaw's character is the polar opposite but equally well developed and while her neuroses might be better hidden she definitely reveals them and proves to be a real character in her own right, not just a foil for Gwyneth's louder one.

The family setting that much of the film takes place in really grounds the film, giving it an atmosphere of normality, but also of quiet dignity. It feels totally real in a way that few films achieve.

And of course, the mother is played by the indomitable Isabella Rossellini. How glorious it is to see her beautiful face growing old gracefully. I really do adore her!

So, goodness me, I seem to have banged on rather. But even a couple of months after watching this film I am still in love with it. So my recommendation would be to rent it immediately. Although probably best not to if you are feeling at all emotionally fragile, I'm sure there is some chick flick that would be a better diversion...

Hail the Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges, 1944)

I do love Preston Sturgess. His films satisfy part of me that is very rarely catered too by modern cinema. With the exception of the Coens' Intolerable Cruelty (why don't more people love this film? I personally can't get enough of it.) and, to a lesser extent, Burn After Reading. And they have been directly influenced by him.

But while some of his films are movie heaven for me (Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Unfaithfully Yours) there are others that just don't do it (The Great McGinty). Unfortunately I think Hail the Conquering Hero (1944, Dir: Preston Sturgess) is more likely to come into the second category. I found myself fairly indifferent to it.

I think it is just a bit all over the place. It gets the crazy full pelt comedy moments just right. The marines talking ten to the dozen and inventing heroics make for great moments and the welcome home scene with all the bands playing at the wrong time is wonderful, but when it comes to the hero and heroine and the political element it seemed difficult to really care.

Eddie Bracken plays the fool and hams it up for the camera, but you don't get too much of an idea of the character, or why he makes the decisions he does. You also don't feel that he is that bothered that his girl is engaged to someone else. And when they inevitably get together there is little passion or even interest demonstrated.

The army theme sometimes gets a bit heavy handed, and while relevant at the time now feels quite strange to be talking about patriotism in that way. Although, you probably have to make concessions to the time it was made in it does feel as though it is very much of that time and it is inevitable that it won't translate in the same way now.

William Demarest is, as always, hilarious and gruff and crass and probably the highlight of the film.

One of the big disappointments was the dame. The female roles in Sturgess films are usually pretty ballsy and feisty, playing against more naive men, but Ella Raines barely gets a look in. She's awfully pretty and all but infinitely forgettable, which is a shame.

I think the film gets all the additional bits right but the central characters are just a bit dull and I think the film suffers for that with all the good bits forgotten so that you come away feeling that the whole venture was fairly pointless. A few laughs but if you are new to Sturgess I would give this one a miss.