The Names of Love (2011)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 51
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 13
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Critic Reviews: 26
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 9
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 1,196
My Rating
Movie Info
Young extrovert Baya Benmahmoud lives by this classic motto: "Make love, not war." In order to convert them to her cause, she sleeps with her political enemies - which means a lot of men, because every conservative is her enemy. So far, she's gotten good results. Until she meets Arthur Martin, 40-something. She figures that with such a common name (there are more than 10,000 Arthur Martins in France), he's bound to be a real conservative and thus hard to convert. Yet, names are treacherous and
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Cast
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Jacques Gamblin
Arthur Martin -
Sara Forestier
Bahia Benmahmoud -
Zinedine Soualem
Mohamed Benmahmoud -
Carole Franck
Cecile Benmahmoud -
Jacques Boudet
Lucien Martin -
Michèle Moretti
Annette Martin -
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All Critics (51) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (38) | Rotten (13)
There's a taste of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Something Wild" "Forces of Nature" and even "Bringing Up Baby," perhaps the best of the wild child-seduces-straight arrow romances.
Top CriticIt's always entertaining, and it boasts a terrific performance from Sara Forestier.
A bit jarring while still totally disarming, The Names of Love stirs the pot in more ways than one.
It's all put across with such energy and good spirits that it feels brand new. If you don't enjoy this one, you don't like fun.
It's a playfully sexy farce that plays like a Gallic "Annie Hall" - if Annie had been as blithe about nudity as Baya is.
Playfully provocative and boasting a star-making turn from Sara Forestier, The Names of Love addresses the volatile issue of European assimilation and multiculturalism, but in a tone and tenor full of screwball whimsy.
An edgy French twist on the old Hollywood "meet cute" romance.
It's a credit to the talents of his cast as well as to Leclerc's ability to juggle comedy and drama that The Names of Love manages to be so winning a concoction.
Your name is your destiny ... but not always
The far-left lead character in The Names of Love is so enchanting even Rush Limbaugh would give her the time of day.
What is so surprising -- even exhilarating -- about The Names of Love is that it shucks off the desultory roadblocks that engine the modern romantic comedy.
It's a familiar story, but one that Leclerc tells with a lot of energy and ingenuity.
Any movie that can wring hilarity out of a scene in which the heroine keeps making inadvertent Holocaust references has to be doing something right.
The elements of sex, race and religion spin in separate orbits, but the two likable leads hold them together as the film grows surprisingly serious.
A modest bit of fun.
It's commendable to want to mix serious ideas and emotional complexity into a light comedy, but you need to have a point that goes deeper than "bigotry is bad."
An extreme scenario, yes, but really just a new French take on the time-old screwball comedy motif: straight guy meets crazy gal.
Noteworthy...for wrapping a message about overcoming ethnic and political differences in the trappings of a conventional romantic comedy, and being largely successful at such a tricky task.
A meretricious mix of lechery, kitsch, bad taste, and glib political correctness.
Audience Reviews for The Names of Love
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Arthur Martin: Hi my family was gassed. How are you?
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- Bahia Benmahmoud: The day there's nothing but half-breeds there'll be peace. We're the future of humanity.
- Arthur Martin: That's hybrid vitality.
- Bahia Benmahmoud: What?
- Arthur Martin: In biology, two animals which mate despite having different genetic inheritance.
- Bahia Benmahmoud: That's beautiful.
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- Bahia Benmahmoud: Our families are like two slices of history making love! It makes me want to cry.
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June 24, 2011:
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Foreign Titles
- Der Name der Leute (DE)
- The Names of Love (Le nom des gens) (UK)
