Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
She is almost deaf and she lip-reads. He is an ex-convict. She wants to help him. He thinks no one can help except himself.
Jacques Audiard's breakthrough thriller is a genuinely distinctive piece of French cinema. The almost-deaf protagonist Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) using her disability as a criminal tool is a brilliantly original conceit, and the film subverts genre expectations at every turn. Devos and Vincent Cassel deliver powerhouse performances with tremendous chemistry and vulnerability. The screenplay weaves workplace alienation, desire, and crime into an unusually tight thriller fabric. Cinematography is functional and grounded but not especially striking. The ending, while satisfying, doesn't quite match the inventiveness of what precedes it.