Based on the premise, I had high expectations for this film. I was not disappointed. The film, however, started out, I thought, too quickly, too cleverly, a la Amelie Poulain, with its introductions and back stories of the main characters. When the film settled down, inside the apartment, the film got back on track to a pace I could enjoy. The dialogue is wonderful between the characters, each character having a unique voice and talking about subjects I would talk about at a dinner party. Each character had a certain point of view, unique yet relatable. Although the title is only a springboard to other subjects, it does start the film rolling, and roll it does, from jokes, to misunderstandings, to secrets, to childhood resentments, to pent up rage reaching it's climax during Babu's meltdown. Although all the characters are interesting, it is Babu we are rooting for. I loved Valérie Benguigui's amazing performance. I'd never seen her in films and I hope that I get to see more of her. The other actors are also fine in their roles. I must also say that Francoise Fabian has just aged beautifully. The first time I saw her was in Eric Rohmer's MY NIGHT AT MAUDS'S which was released in 1969. She still looks amazing.....I wrote this review before reading all the credits and was saddened to learn that Valerie Benguigui passed away in 2013 from cancer. People are here for a short time and they leave us. Some, if lucky, leave behind something that is forever in the cultural landscape. I'm glad I was witness to this beautiful film and beautiful performance ..Rest in Peace

I had a big smile on my face during the end credits because I thoroughly enjoyed this French movie from 2012! Yes, it's essentially a stage play, almost the entire film is set in the upper-middle class Parisian living room of the couple who have invited another couple and a single friend over for dinner. The dialogue is exceptional, the acting is superb (it's my understanding they performed this as a play with the same cast in Paris before making the film; this is why they seem so cohesive).Two of the cast members were known to me: Charles Berling and Patrick Bruel. Three of the cast members were new to me: Cesar winners Valerie Benguigui and Guillaume de Toncquedonc; and Judith El Zein (as Anna, Vincent's wife, who is very late arriving at the party, so she can reveal that they aren't really naming the baby Adolphe/Adolf, but rather Henri). Francoise Fabian has the small role of Vincent and the wife's (Babu) mother.I didn't like the film version of Carnage at all, and this film resembles it very closely. This one is MUCH better.I was surprised the film didn't feel static. It moved right along without any sagging. It's almost all talk but interesting talk. I would be interested in other plays by Matthieu Delaporte, who co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay.I love French cinema. It's a cinema of actors and dialogue more than cinematography. Films often look similar but feel different.The one suspenseful moment is that I thought Claude was going to declare his love for Babu. We are misled into thinking it's Anna he's having an affair with, but it's actually Francoise, the mother! Nice touch! Especially since everyone, including the audience, thinks he's gay! (:

"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.

I had the chance to see Le Prénom during an Air France flight. Flying is always a chance to see new movies and, taking advantage of the extensive menu of movies that are unknown in Mexico I took a chance with something I'll hardly see in my country. Between the various french productions I saw this one mainly because it was starred by Patrick Bruel, when I was a kid I enjoyed a lot his movie Le Jaguar (1996), so I decided to see his acting once again now that I have more experience and could appreciate it better.Le Prénom is a sitcom which relies on a clever script and in the work of the actors, who play a group of friends (two marriages and a single man) that meet for a dinner to celebrate the future birth of the son of one of the couples. However when the name chosen for the baby is revealed it turns out completely unlikeable to the rest of the group. Vincent (Bruel) announces he will be called Adolphe in honor of a literary character of the XIX Century, but everyone else can only think about Adolf Hitler. From that point on the conflict between the five characters escalates, and during the evening secrets and quarrels will be revealed leaving no one untouched.When it starts the movie is really good, the first discussion is between Vincent and Claude (Gillaume de Toquedec) the main opposer to the chosen name and it has great dialogs and convincing arguments for both points of view, it is ingenious, funny and definitively the best of the picture which, regretfully, can't keep this highpoint during all its runtime. When the movie goes on we find out Adolphe is not the real name for the kid and that everything is nothing but a practical joke played by Vincent, however this is not revealed to the characters in time and once it is is to late to stop the conflict between everyone of them. By this point the movie has lost its novelty, the viewer quickly learns how events will unfold and thus it misses some fun. A discussion ends, a silence fills the place and you know that at any moment someone will let out a comment that will lead to a new argument with some of the characters that so far have avoided the fighting, indeed that's what happens. The acting remains solid and the movie is still entertaining but not surprising.By the end every character is unhappy and everything seems to show that nothing will ever be the same between them, this is were the ending comes and from my point of view it badly hurts the rest of the movie. We see the birth of the baby which turns out to be a girls instead of a boy and the parents call their friends so they can meet the newborn, everyone is just as happy as always and it would appear that nothing happened during that dinner, their friendship will go on with no changes. I don't have anything against happy endings and I wouldn't have any problem with the movie if the conflict had been solved in other way, but it all happens so fast and with no explanation that it left me with the feeling that the writers and the director didn't gave much of a thought to this and just took the easy way out. The ending leaves everything we saw without any consequence and thus it takes all the significance of what could have been a better film.Good acting, funny dialogs and a good script but all hurted by a bad ending, still it ain't a bad effort and you will have fun if You watch it, give it a chance if you have the time.