Read My Lips

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

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.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Though you get caught up in the criminal element (you really want these people to get away with it), you're also fascinated by who to trust. It's an unusual dance between the awkward and plain that becomes romantic and thrilling -- a subtly impressive feat to say the least.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Expertly sinister, office-as-devil's-playground French thriller.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Since you can't read my lips, read my words: See this movie.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Fascinating and transgressive love story.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

It's a wholly amoral movie, but it's honestly amoral. And that's a relief for the audience.

The New Yorker David Denby

The movie turns into a serious and rather audacious study in the sexiness of a nonsexual relationship, though by the end the audience may be rooting for the two to quit risking life and limb and just go to bed together. [15 July 2002. p. 90]

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Like so many European pictures these days, Read My Lips seems destined to be remade in Hollywood, and it is unlikely to be improved by the addition of vainer actors, a simpler screenplay and flashier direction.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

While the plot twists in Read My Lips may be too intensely melodramatic for some tastes, the performances of the two leads are impeccable, just about compelling our belief.

Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)

The tense climax stretches the story's credibility to the breaking point, but for the most part this is noir of an exceptionally high caliber, its sequence of events revealing two complicated and compromised people.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Exciting to watch: The audio disruptions of Carla putting in or taking out her hearing aids and the inventiveness of the way the heist plot is revealed are just a couple of the film's treats.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

An unconventional and engrossing French thriller.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not a simpleminded movie in which merely being ABLE to read lips saves the day. In this brilliant sequence, she reads his lips and that ALLOWS them to set into motion a risky chain of events based on the odds that the bad guys will respond predictably.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A finely written, superbly acted offbeat thriller.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

An inventive, propulsive office thriller.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Unlike in many character studies, the plot is more than just a simple framework. It is complex and unpredictable, and, as a result, provides the perfect means to better get to know the characters and understand the shifting nature of their relationship.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Isn't just scary, charming and delightfully unpredictable - it's also smarter and subtler than any new movie out there.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This is the kind of unusual but involving picture that's ripe for a Hollywood remake - but while you're waiting for the Sandra Bullock-Ethan Hawke edition (it's a good post-movie game: coming up with your own casting ideas), Read My Lips is well worth checking out.

Time Richard Schickel

The comedic first part of Jacques Audiard's film doesn't achieve a seamless connection with its melodramatic second half, but you can't deny the originality of his conceit or the tart cynicism of its development.

Variety Derek Elley

Engaging chemistry between leads Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

For as long as director and co-writer Jacques Audiard focuses on the central relationship, his stylish film stays on steady footing.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Improbably, Read My Lips escapes the cynicism of much contemporary neo-noir, if only by a hair, by ending as a love story of delightful crackpot idealism, in which Paul has made a crook and a hussy out of Carla, and she's made a gentleman out of him.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

Audiard keeps things shaky, grim, claustrophobic, doomed. His film has the feel of documentary, as he follows Clara through the daily grind that pulverizes her. We're in her head, literally.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The two leads don't have sexual chemistry together, but that's part of the point.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A gritty thriller on the theme of the con man conned. It works as well as it does thanks to a captivating lead performance by Emmanuelle Devos and the superb direction of Jacques Audiard.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

There's a satisfying craftsmanship to every sequence, the direction is stylish without being show-offy, the plot mechanics are convincing, the pace is breakneck and compelling, and the film does something unique and interesting with its Hitchcockian concept.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

You could describe Read My Lips as a love story, but that would make the movie sound much more conventional than it really is. See it now, before the inevitable Hollywood remake flattens out all its odd, intriguing wrinkles.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Hailed as a clever exercise in neo-Hitchcockianism, this clever and very satisfying picture is more accurately Chabrolian.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The action is largely psychological, but it's accelerated by Audiard's nervous camera, chiaroscuro lighting, and jangling montage.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Offers you the ostensible bargain of two movies in one -- a character study at the outset and the crime caper that follows. The first picture is intriguing, the second stinks.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Devos is especially fine as a woman whose inner solitude carries depth charges.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The first half is a well-acted psychological drama, but the second half is standard thriller fare with more action than insight.