Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I just love the way the directors have knitted such a twisted tale of racial intolerance and prejudices and yet without offending anyone baffles me. A perfect blend of humour and pathos, wonderfully acted this film had me hooked from start to finish, it made me laugh out loud and yet made me think of the way I perceive different races and religions. Sadly only the French could make a film of this quality. it could be possible in my opinion to compare this to Welcome To Dongmakol another excellent film which looks at the stupid belligerent attitude of countries and it's peoples, the pointlessness of hatred and inbred prejudices. Wonderful film which I thoughtfully enjoyed.10/10

Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin) is a reserved member of the Office of Epizootic Diseases. He has an interview on the radio. Left-wing opinionated Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) is taking calls for the station. She bursts in on the interview to complain. Martin's Jewish mother hid from the Nazis and changed her name. She was glad to marry Arthur's French father and take his name. Arthur isn't too happy with his name either which is the name of a popular cooker. Baya's father is Algerian. His family members were killed by the military. Baya's mother is a hippie from an upper class French family. She was happy to lose her name and gain an Arab name. Arthur's family represses their haunted history while Baya's family is boisterous and political. She was sexually molested by a neighbor as a child and is very sexually liberated as an adult. On the other hand, he's very repressed. She uses sex to convert 'fascists' to her politics. Despite being a socialist, he catches her eye and they become an odd pairing as she continues to try to convert 'fascists' from all sides.Normally, I have difficulties with French comedies. It may be the cultural barrier or it may simply be reading the subtitles. There is something distancing about having to read a joke rather than have it performed. Sara Forestier is able to break through with her expressiveness. She is enchanting, sexy and magnetic. Jacques Gamblin also has a great deal of charm. His expressions are the perfect foil for her. They work brilliantly together. There are real big laughs in this and that is rare for me with foreign language verbal jokes. Physical humor is without borders but written jokes have a harder time crossing those borders. It's also a great romance. His support for her father is pure romanticism. This is a great unconventional rom-com.

(Minor spoilers.) The premise of this movie is a romance between a self-proclaimed left-wing "political whore" and a (left-leaning, but not overtly political) veterinarian. Both are the children of a native French citizen and a member of a historically maligned group (Baya is half-Algerian, Arthur half-Jewish). But instead of engaging in some awful, weepy remembrance tearjerker, this movie gives its audience some credit and handles the expected poignance with humor and aplomb. Yes, the characters have secrets and conflicts which they've circumvented throughout their lives, but the specifics are irrelevant and--appropriately--elided. Rather, this is an attempt to examine how people deal with their heritage and personal lives while trying to reconcile their reactions with their beliefs--and what they feel their beliefs _ought_ to be.Moreover, while the full complexity of the characters' struggles is shown, it is always with a subtlety that keeps the movie grounded. The conversion of ancestral suffering into a cachet, to be readily exploited for the social needs of youth; the feelings of inadequacy in the presence of our parents, whose enormous ordeals seem to render our own difficulties trivial; the mental prisons we build for ourselves in order to establish emotional security; all of these intricate webs of social determinants and individual aspirations are depicted with just the right balance of sympathy and objectivity.So there is actual substance here. But what is truly remarkable is that Leclerc's use of po-mo tropes (like protagonists directly addressing the camera or characters interacting with their former selves) never feels stilted or laborious, and in fact entails a seamless fusion of form and content.

Imagine your second name is Leclerc, which is also that of a famous hypermarket chain. Now imagine you have a friend who writes scripts whose first name is Baya, only 26 other people in France have in common with you. Nobody would spare you the question, «Leclerc, ... like the hypermarket?» while your friend couldn't escape «Baya, where does it originate from? Brazil?» whereas her roots are North African. Why not take these two peculiarities as a starting point for a romantic comedy that would deal with questions that matter to you: emigration, identity, the duty to remember, family secrets, taboos, politics?Michel Leclerc thus becomes Arthur Martin, an Avian Flu expert, whose name immediately calls to mind a well known French cooker brand. And Baya will be Bahia Benmahmoud, an extrovert girl who makes a point of sleeping with as many right-wingers as possible to win them over to the leftist cause. And on they are for a very original, very deep film which, by trying to unite two such dissimilar people, successfully spans the history of France, from the 1930's until today . And a very funny one too (the two most irrepressible scenes being the catastrophic dinner with the in-laws and the crazy cameo of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin). The direction is particularly inspired, creative and unconventional (the characters who address the camera, Jacques Boudet playing a student and a young soldier whereas he is in his seventies because Arthur can't imagine him young, Arthur's dialog with his dead grandparents). «Le nom des gens» has less to do with a standard French comedy than with such brilliant oddities as «Toto le Héros», «Crazy» or «Le premier jour du reste de ma vie», also with Jacques Gamblin, who is perfect here as the dull biologist slowly opening himself to real life. In the role of his wild, passionate but insecure guide on his way to love and life, Sara Forestier gives her best performance since «L'Esquive». Also to be noted are Zinedine Soualem as Bahia's sweet Algerian- born father, Carole Franck as his energetic militant wife, Jacques Boudet and Michèle Moretti as Arthur's parents. And of course Lionel Jospin, who displays a great sense of humor in his only scene. If you like inventive movies that make you both smile and think over, this one is for you.