Coupling

Let's call it a Valentine's Day pregame. Here are three titles that revolve around couples.

- READ MY LIPS (2001) (B+)
This is an early film from Jacques Audiard, who has had a fine seven-year run as a writer/director with "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" (2005), "A Prophet" (2009)" and the current release "Rust and Bone." This is a low-key love story, or more precisely, the saga of two homely sad sacks who find an unlikely bond after a chance meeting.

Here, Emmanuelle Devos ("Beat ...," "Kings and Queen") is dirtied up for the role of the budding spinster Carla, who is hustling to spin her secretarial post into a bigger role at the design/construction firm dominated by men. She hires a temp, Paul (Vincent Cassel, who comes pre-dirtied and -Picasso'd); he happens to be a homeless ex-con trying to avoid bad influences and keep his appointments with his parole officer (who comes with his own odd, vague storyline). Mix in Carla's hearing impairment (she's essentially deaf) and we're off and running.

Carla goes out of her way to help Paul stay straight. She also quickly develops a crush, and Devos is quite touching during scenes in which she plays dress-up at home with sexy outfits or snoops around Paul's flat (a secret spot in one of the company's apartment complexes in progress) and takes a deep whiff of his bedsheets. She's no workplace wallflower, though; to gain an edge, she soon starts exploiting Paul's criminal inclinations by getting him to steal from a partner and bully a client as a way to advance a key project. Meanwhile, to work off a debt with the main bad guy, Paul takes a job as a bartender in his club. When Paul finds out that Carla can read lips, he guilts and bullies her into setting up a perch on the bar's rooftop so she can spy on the bad guy and his crew and thus help Paul intercept a big score.

This is a compelling film. Audiard takes his time solidifying the bond between Carla and Paul, and he fills in the margins expertly with stray but satisfying subplots like the parole officer's missing wife and the sexual adventures of Carla's pretty pal, Annie (the striking Olivia Bonamy), who seems clueless to Carla's romantic pain and longing. Audiard also plays soundtrack tricks with Carla's hearing impairment, helping the viewer experience that helpless underwater feeling when her hearing aids are out.

My main reservation with the film: No matter how expert Audiard is at character development and plot cultivation, it's difficult to ignore the 800-pound cliche in the room. Akin to Audiard's "Rust and Bone," where I couldn't get over the blatant CGI effect of Marion Cotillard's leg stumps, here the gimmick that weights this down into B-grade territory is the gimmick of a deaf person being used to read lips from a distance (with the aid of binoculars and from a rooftop, of course) of criminals who don't have the sense to draw the curtains before plotting their Big Score. It's like Hitchcock dramatizing a George Costanza plotline from a "Seinfeld" episode.

But it's not a fundamental flaw; it's just a quaint bow to convention. Even Audiard's masterpiece, "A Prophet," is a traditional prison movie, although that's like saying "The Godfather" is a nice mob film. "A Prophet" stands proudly with "The Godfather," and it remains Audiard's only flawless film. "Read My Lips" is carried by Devos and Cassel and their complicated bonding process, and we forgive the filmmaker his own sins.


CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (B-minus)
I was patient with this film and liked it a lot at times. I admired the effort of Rashida Jones (co-writer, co-star) in trying to hammer a few dents in the armor of the romantic comedy genre. When she succeeds, this is fun. But I have issues:

* You can drag a decent performance out of Andy Samberg ("Saturday Night Live's" digital shorts), but alas, you still have a movie relying heavily on Andy Samberg, who would come in a distant second in a dramatic crying contest with his prototype, Adam Sandler (see "Reign Over Me").
* The gay-best-friend character is rendered ironically, but the jokes miss by a wide mark, and in the end, he's still her "gay best friend."
* Does anyone still laugh when characters mock yoga and veganism? You're not making "Annie Hall," and this is not the '70s.
* While we're at it, drunken wedding toasts, no matter how smartly crafted and heartfelt, are another 800-pound cliche.
* And who would have guessed that Quincy Jones' daughter would have such bad taste in music, cluttering the overbearing soundtrack with a cacophony of smooth sounds.

The premise is intriguing -- a couple in the process of a divorce still get along famously and hang out every day (he lives in the guest house), until he gets his feelings hurt and starts dating. He's an unemployed loser and she's a successful go-getter (she works as a trend expert), but can you guess which one gets his act together and which one starts to fall apart? To Jones' credit, we're spared a predictable ending.

But this one is painfully hit and miss. I liked the clever wordplay (her book is called "Shitegeist"; they hang out at the "Yogurt Yurt"; and their divorce is handled by the law firm of "Stein, Weinberg, Steinberg & Jimenez"). But for every fresh bit, we are insulted with trite scenes of Jones pigging out on fast food or hitting the bong hard during her self-loathing nadir. Let's give Jones a B+ for effort, at least.


WRECK-IT RALPH (C+)
I think Sarah Silverman has found her calling: cartoon voices. Silverman shakes off the snark of her painfully sarcastic TV show and has a blast voicing her racecar-driving videogame character, a girl with a glitch (she's Pixelexic). Cute Vanellope bonds with the big lug, Ralph, who is tired of being the bad guy in his own game as the wrecker and foil to good-guy Fix-It Felix Jr. The two outcasts join forces to help Vanellope out-maneuver the popular girls and the evil king of Vanellope's Candy Land hometown in order to win the big race and gain popularity and acceptance for her and Ralph.

The set-up is slow and the rest of it is predictably hyper. John C. Reilly is just OK as the voice of Ralph. Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") as Felix and Jane Lynch ("Glee") as a hard-ass (and unnervingly violent) GI Jane have no chemistry (if such a thing is possible while voicing cartoon characters). If you're not a geek from the classic era of arcade games, you probably won't appreciate most of the references. I went with a 13-year-old (I've commissioned a review from her), and neither of us fell into the target audience.

We were rewarded with a heartfelt ending and a sweet message, but it's all Disney formula, packed with screechingly obvious product placements. I would think that this fairly nasty and violent version of a "Scooby-Doo" episode would traumatize kids and bore most adults.