Critic Reviews
-
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
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.
-
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
It's always entertaining, and it boasts a terrific performance from Sara Forestier.
-
Tom Long, Detroit News
A bit jarring while still totally disarming, The Names of Love stirs the pot in more ways than one.
-
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
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.
-
Mark Jenkins, Washington Post
It's a playfully sexy farce that plays like a Gallic "Annie Hall" - if Annie had been as blithe about nudity as Baya is.
-
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
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.
-
Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
An edgy French twist on the old Hollywood "meet cute" romance.
-
Jay Antani, Cinema Writer
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.
-
Marty Mapes, Movie Habit
Your name is your destiny ... but not always
-
Christian Toto, What Would Toto Watch?
The far-left lead character in The Names of Love is so enchanting even Rush Limbaugh would give her the time of day.
-
Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle
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.
-
Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI)
It's a familiar story, but one that Leclerc tells with a lot of energy and ingenuity.
-
Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly
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.
-
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.
-
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
A modest bit of fun.
-
Jeff Meyers, Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
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."
-
Matthew Sorrento, IdentityTheory
An extreme scenario, yes, but really just a new French take on the time-old screwball comedy motif: straight guy meets crazy gal.
-
Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion
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.
-
Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix
A meretricious mix of lechery, kitsch, bad taste, and glib political correctness.
Read all 19 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
-
A delicious romantic comedy, funny and thought-provoking, with an intelligent commentary on politics and society. But it stands out more for its originality and for being as atypical as its eccentric characters, who we easily learn to care about.
-
A romantic comedy as only the French can do it! Two unlikely characters meet and fall in love, although the road to get there is never smooth. Sarah Forestier, as Baya, the free-spirited daughter of an Algerian immigrant father and a left-wing activist French mother, meets Arthur… More
A romantic comedy as only the French can do it! Two unlikely characters meet and fall in love, although the road to get there is never smooth. Sarah Forestier, as Baya, the free-spirited daughter of an Algerian immigrant father and a left-wing activist French mother, meets Arthur Martin (like the cooker), played by Jacques Gamblin, an uptight son of a Jewish woman and a father descended from Greek immigrants. Ms Forestier is a blue-eyed dark haired beauty who captivated this viewer from the outset. This one had the viewer laughing and crying at the antics of these star-crossed lovers who somehow make it work in the end. The filmmaker's style seems to have been influenced by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in it's use of flashback with voice-over narration, and the saturated colors in some of the scenes. And that was a good thing, as it enhanced the emotional impact of the film. A terrific story, that had me rooting for these two the whole way through!
-
"The Names of Love" starts with Arthur Martin(Jacques Gamblin), an expert in bird diseases, minding his own business on a call-in radio show, urging precaution over the death of a duck.(It was Elmer Fudd I tell you! Because it's duck season. Rabbit season. Duck… More
"The Names of Love" starts with Arthur Martin(Jacques Gamblin), an expert in bird diseases, minding his own business on a call-in radio show, urging precaution over the death of a duck.(It was Elmer Fudd I tell you! Because it's duck season. Rabbit season. Duck season...whoa. Where was I? Oh yeah.) Baya Benmahmoud(Sara Forestier), angry at what she was hearing in her very temporary job answering the telephone, charges into the studio to give everybody a piece of her mind. Afterwards, Baya approaches Arthur about having sex together. Rewind a bit to when Arthur's mother(Michele Moretti) survived the Holocaust and Baya's father(Zinedine Soualem) was living in Algeria.
A lot of what I don't like about romantic comedies is that they are generally not about anything, fantasies that think they are set in the real world. By contrast, "The Names of Love" incorporates fantasy elements in its witty and sexy deconstruction of identity in modern day France with a couple of classic sight gags to illustrate, offset with a melancholy undercurrent. As Arthur and Baya show us what had to happen for them to meet(In return, Arthur is occasionally advised by his teenaged self(Adrien Stoclet).), we see how their lives were shaped by events beyond their control. To challenge those forces, people including Baya's mother(Carole Franck), attempt to change the laws of the country to make it a better place to live. In response to being sexually abused by her piano teacher as a child, Baya decides to become a 'political whore.' The trick in the present day is to not let the political become personal. That's not to mention the cool stuff you can learn from this movie like how the QWERTY keyboard originated.
Currently unavailable on Flixster
Also available on
Other Retailers
Subscription Services
