Wild At Heart
The movie "The Names Of Love" starts out introducing us to the two leads in the film, the everyman Arthur Martin who shares his name with countless other countrymen and Bahia Benmahmound, the free-spirited young woman who is the only person in the country with her name. This sets up what will be a romantic comedy of two opposites trying to find common ground.
Both characters are affected by the personalities of their parents. Arthur grew up in a house hold under the shadow in the holocaust and has made him a careful non-risk taker. Bahia grew up with a hippie mother and foreign born maintenance worker with a skill for painting which makes her a free-spirited, and slightly air-headed, young woman. If this ever gets remade as an American film, think Zooey Deschanel as the Bahia character.
Upon their first meeting, Arthur is taking in this dynamic young person who represents everything he isn’t in his life while Bahia seems to enjoy Arthurs’ more grounded nature. Every movie relationship of this nature needs a focal point that threatens the foundation of the relationship and while the parents’ natural differences would seem perfect, that is only a minor roadblock. In this movie, it is a childhood incident with a piano teacher that has put her on a path of promiscuity. However, the catch is she uses her love of sex to fight a war with fascists.
She uses her intelligence and charm to seduce people who she considers fascists and entices them to change their ways before leaving them and moving to the next target. Martin comes at this almost accepting but the relationship cannot move forward until Bahia can find it within herself to commit to Martin and Martin only.
The movie starts off a bit slow but picks up speed and delivers a wonderfully delightful romantic offbeat comedy. The film has a nice core to work around and the actors, esp Sara Forestier as Bahia, put forth wonderful performances. If you enjoy films like “(500) Day Of Summer”. Check out this foreign counterpart when it starts today at the Maple Art Theatre . My grade is a A-.
