Movie Review: The Names of Love

French actress Sara Forestier reacts on stage after winning the Best Actress award for Michel Leclerc's film 'Le Nom des Gens' (The Names of Love) during the 36th Cesar Awards ceremony in Paris. Photo / AP

An offbeat odd-couple comedy with a deliciously bittersweet centre, this highly enjoyable film struggles slightly to communicate across a cultural divide. It's about as French as pastis, and international audiences may struggle with the very specific cultural references that litter the witty script.

The subtitles have attempted to bridge the gap with occasionally hilarious results - the name of Bernard-Henri Levy, an Algerian-born philosopher and pop culture celebrity in France, is rendered on screen as Woody Allen - but there's not much to be done about a script that refers to the oppression of Algerian immigrants and uses a cameo by former socialist PM Lionel Jospin as a narrative in-joke.

All that said, there's a lot to enjoy in a film that leavens a serious subject with some genuinely hilarious comedic moments.

The sexy Forestier plays Baya Benmahmoud, a passionate anti-fascist whose activism is very specific in its methods: a pint-size Pandora in pink Doc Martens, who buys lobsters to return them to the sea, she is straightening out the world's right-wingers one one-night stand at a time.

But her plans come off the rails when she meets buttoned-down Arthur Martin (Gamblin), a scientist who specialises in avian flu. Cue the oddest of odd romances.

The slightly grating improbability of the age difference aside, the film cracks along at a furiously entertaining pace, before effortlessly morphing in the final quarter into something more serious, without ever getting ponderous.

The French title, which means "People's Names", hints at the deeper concerns: it's a film about identity - ethnic, political, even sexual - and about the keeping of secrets which inevitably curdle over generations.

It never gets heavy-handed about it: one of the many in-jokes concerns Martin's name - Arthur Martin is the name of a major appliance manufacturer. Rather it manages to juggle serious and comic intentions very gracefully indeed.

LOWDOWN

Stars: 3.5/5
Verdict: Sexy and bittersweet.
Cast: Sara Forestier, Jacques Gamblin, Carole Franck, Zinedine Soualem, Michelle Moretti, Jacques Boudet
Director: Michel Leclerc
Running time: 100 mins
Rating: R16 (offensive language, sex scenes) In French and Arabic with English subtitles

-TimeOut