LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

suite92 The Three Acts: The initial tableaux: The film starts in the 9th arrondissement in Paris. Pierre and Élisabeth (called Babu by most) are hosting a small dinner party. The daughter and son hopefully will stay asleep. Babu's brother Vincent arrives, and draws interest in the name of his pre-natal son with his wife. Trombonist and long time family friend Claude joins the group. Considerably later, Vincent's wife Anna arrives.Delineation of conflicts: Vincent's choice for the son's name is quite offensive, and a debate rages over it. Much emotional heat is generated as a result; tempers warm more than a bit.Later, Vincent admits that the announced name was a joke, but the hurt feelings remain. Worse, the admission comes only after Vincent and Pierre have wounded each other with words. The group continues skewering each other with sharp speech.Resolution: Can the group resume their usual warm relationships? Several harsh buried truths surface during the verbal fencing.

phoenix 2 Five friends gather for a dinner party and they end up revealing secrets. The main story doesn't sound much, however the movie is very funny and entertaining. Simple jokes, without the vulgar additions that the comedies tend to have these days to produce laugher. But, as the story proceeds, the humorous atmosphere turn into a dramatic, as the secrets are being revealed one after the other. The transition is very smooth and you don't really realise it. Great performances, without overdoing it (well, most of the time anyway). The characters are clear and you can easily get them and understand their next moves. All in all, a nice movie.

titusg French gossip pretentiously called movie. Few lads are invited one night around the dinner table. They start talking about all the nonsense's possible. The camera stay in this room for the hole movie. I will say the budget was not to big or they use some public funds. There are few interesting lines and some funny jokes but this is not sufficient for making a movie. Adolf and Adolphe is a good example but they push it too long. Then you sleep with my mother, I make jokes about your kids names etc etc. This scenario is more adapted for theater that for cinemas in my opinion! Compare with Nous York, the last french movie I have seen, this is still watchable though .... I just realized how hard it is to write down 10 lines about a movie you don't like.

3xHCCH "Le Prenom" is about a group of five middle-aged friends who are having a Moroccan dinner get-together one night. The hosts are Pierre (a literature professor) and his dutiful wife Elisabeth (nicknamed Babou). Claude is a professional trombonist who was Elisabeth's best friend. Vincent is Elisabeth's joker of a brother, whose wife Anna is pregnant with their first child. It was the matter of naming Vincent and Anna's unborn baby boy that starts us off in this adventure of bitter wit and sharp barbs all within the confines of Pierre's apartment. From a heated argument about the name Vincent plans to give his son, their conversation devolves into more serious and painful matters about each other's secrets they have been keeping from each other all these thirty odd years they have known each other as close friends."Le Prenom," with its confined action and lengthy dialogues, felt like a play. The passionate cast, led by Vincent Bruel and Charles Berling, were also acting like stage actors with their over-the top, exaggerated (therefore not too realistic for film) reactions and exclamations. I found out afterwards that it was adapted by Mathieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patelliere, based on their 2011 stage play. This script of this film is reminiscent of a 2008 French play by Yasmina Reza called "Gods of Carnage", made into a film called "Carnage" by Roman Polanski. That play/film had two middle-aged couple whose arguments begin from a fight between their sons to topics totally different from what they started talking about. As with other foreign language films, I felt a lot of the humor and wit is lost in translation into the English subtitles. Especially in a very wordy screenplay like this one with practical jokes and secret revelations, so much subtleties in the use of language is expected, and I surely missed. This is already very good as I watching it, but I have a feeling French-speaking people found it even better. I will definitely watch a live English language performance of this play if there was one.