Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This is a typical French drama, which means you'll have to wait for the inevitable of course; but on the other hand, if you're use to this genre, you may not expect the inevitable to occur. It does. There, I just spoiled it; you were warned. If you are a Jacques Audiard fan, as I am, you will not be disappointed. Each film directed by the man has rewarded my expectations.Carla, played by Emmanuelle Devos, is a near totally deaf employee at a major construction and development firm where only her supervisor appears to have noticed her talent and dedication, whereas her co-workers see her with a different and biased eye. She manages with a hearing aid and by putting in more work than anyone else. Her boss recognizing this assigns her an intern, which she can pick herself. She picks Paul, an ex-convict, played by fame international star Vincent Cassel; I assumed the character of Carla was sympathetic to underdog Paul for obvious reasons, but I realized soon enough it was because he took her seriously and felt some degree of gratitude when she goes beyond what he expected and finds him accommodations on top of making sure he keeps his job. Paul has a much different outlook on life. When he notices she reads lips, he puts two and two together and sees the potential for spying on a gang of criminals who he wants to rip-off. He convinces her to do this for him and she very reluctantly obliges, having developed for him feelings, not reciprocated until the very end of the movie.The caper does not go all that well and almost fails; were it not for Carla putting herself at risk to get Paul what he wanted, he would have not only lost his chance, but also his life. That was all that was needed for him to wake up to the love of the woman meant for him. I'm just a sucker for those kinds of movies and if you liked my synopsis, you'll like the movie.

Jacques Audiard is since some time a well respected French director and "Sur mes lèvres" is one of his best known ones. You can divide the movie in two parts namely the first hour at where we see how Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) meets Paul (Vincent Cassel) and then the second hour which is developing itself in a real film noir that apart from some brutal scenes can be best described as an intimate arty film noir. Carla is a secretary at a real estate company who works herself to death. Work is the sole category in where she can prove herself as not only she is hard hearing but she has no luck in love either, if love for her even exists. One day she may recruit an assistant and perhaps it's all a bit unrealistic, the job goes to Paul who is just out of jail and who even hasn't typed one letter in his life. At first it seems the two aren't exactly made for each other, but slowly grows respect and a friendship till Carla gets involved in the world of crime. The biggest problem this movie has is its impossible scenario unless you believe that some jerk out of jail without any intelligence can start working in some company doing administrative work. But that itself is just a minor point as Audiard made a more than decent crime story even if the whole plan could have been better explained, but this isn't exactly your Hollywood movie and it wasn't really Audiard's goal as well. Some journalists claim to give this movie four stars and that is exaggerated but apart from that is "Sur mes lèvres" worth the time.

Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a deaf girl, but she can hear thanks to one of those ear-devices. She works at a property developer enterprise as a secretary, and she seems to be the laughing stock of the office, the weirdo. She's shy, solitary, she dresses like a nun, and she's definitely isolated. Her saturday night's date usually is her best girlfriend's baby. Once she was a totally deaf person, and now she isn't; but it seems like that isolation typical of the deaf goes beyond the hearing itself. Now she's needing a personal assistant at the office, and applies for one at the Employee Office. They send Paul. Paul (Vincent Cassell) is an ex-convict, an ex-thief. He gotta find a job and change his ways in order not to come back to jail. Carla gives him the job, and there begins an strange relationship between them: she desperately needs someone to share her life with, she needs to fall in love. He has some old debts to pay (that kind of debts that you MUST pay), and she'll find some Carla's skills so useful in order to solve his problems. Though it was released in 2001 in France, it has just reached Spanish's screens (of course, Steve Seagal's and Van Damme's productions get to our screens right on time); and it's been a great surprise. When you're thinking about quitting on watching new cinema releases suddenly you find movies just like Sur Mes Levres. A dramatic thriller, an story of losers, and of people in search of redemption and happiness. Emmanuelle Devos displays one of the best performances of the latest french cinema: another cold-as-ice french actress that makes a hit out of her lack of expressiveness and his strange beauty; her eyes, her lips, they say it all. Those scenes in wich she's talking to herself, sort of making a rehearsal of his next date with Paul, are so tender and funny. Mr. Cassell (Monica Belluci's husband -can you believe it???-) plays the perfect ex-convict: he REALLY looks and acts like he's just left his dark cell, no doubt his phisique helps a lot. His pressence in the screen is just amazing. PS: There's sort of a parallel story in Sur Mes Levres: some sequences refers to Paul's social worker, a mid-age man whose wife has suddenly dissapeared. Ok, this story makes no sense among the rest of the movie (or maybe I missed something), but it does not smudge the final restults. My rate: 8/10

For those of you who have seen this rather extraordinary romantic thriller noir, my review title is self-explanatory: this is cinema verité for the 21st century. For those of you who haven't, let me note that this begins slowly, so stay with it. You won't regret it.What French director Jacques Audiard has done is create a taunt noir thriller with a romantic subplot intricately woven into the fabric of the main plot, told in the realistic and nonglamorous manner usually seen in films that win international awards. In fact, Sur mes lèvre did indeed win a Cesar (for Emmanuelle Devos) and some other awards. For Audiard character development and delineation are more important than action, yet the action is extremely tense. The romance is of the counter-cultural sort seen in films like, say, Kalifornia (1993) or Natural Born Killer (1994) or the Aussie Kiss or Kill (1997), a genre I call "grunge love on the lam" except that the principles here are not on the road (yet) and still have most of their moral compasses intact.Vincent Cessel and Emmanuelle Devos play the nonglamorous leads, Paul and Carla. Carla is a mousy corporate secretary--actually she's supposed to be mousy, but in fact is intriguing and charismatic and more than a wee bit sexy. But she is inexperienced with men, doesn't dance, is something of a workaholic who lives out a fantasy life home alone with herself. She is partially deaf and adept at reading lips, a talent that figures prominently in the story. She is a little put on by the world and likes to remove her hearing aid or turn it off. When she collapses from overwork her boss suggests she hire an assistant. She hires Paul, who is just out of prison, even though he has no clerical experience. He is filled with the sort of bad boy sex appeal that may recall Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless (1959) or even Richard Gere in the American remake from 1983. We get the sense that Carla doesn't realize that she hired him because she found him attractive. When Carla gets squeezed out of credit for a company deal, she gets Paul to help her turn the tables. From there it is but a step to a larger crime. Note that Carla is unconsciously getting Paul to "prove" his love for her (and his virility) by doing what she wants, working for her, appearing in front of her girl friends as her beau, etc.The camera work features tense, off-center closeups so that we see a lot of the action not in the center of our field of vision but to the periphery as in things partially hidden or overheard or seen out of the corner of our eyes. Audiard wants to avoid any sense of a set or a stage. The camera is not at the center of the action, but is a spy that catches just enough of what is going on for us to follow. Additionally, the film is sharply cut so that many scenes are truncated or even omitted and it is left for us to surmise what has happened. This has the effect of heightening the viewer's involvement, although one has to pay attention. Enhancing the staccato frenzy is a sparse use of dialogue. This works especially well for those who do not speak French since the distraction of having to follow the subtitles is kept to a minimum.Powering the film is a script that reveals and explores the unconscious psychological mechanisms of the main characters while dramatizing both their growing attraction to each other and their shared criminal enterprise. But more than that is the on-screen chemistry starkly and subtly developed by both Devos and Cessel. It is pleasing to note that the usual thriller plot contrivances are kept to a minimum here, and the surprises really are surprises.See this for Emmanuelle Devos whose skill and offbeat charisma more than make up for a lack of glamor, and for Vincent Cessel for a testosterone-filled performance so intense one can almost smell the leather jacket.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)