Le Prenom/ What's in a Name (2013)

The well-lubricated dinner party that goes haywire has been a standard platform for nasty domestic comedy ever since the days of Georges Feydeau. In “What’s In a Name?,” an uproarious French farce, the catalyst for the flinging of mud isn’t booze but a practical joke that is carried so far it rattles skeletons.

When Vincent (Patrick Bruel), a hotshot real estate agent and former playboy, announces that he and Anna (Judith El Zein), his partner of two years, are naming their baby Adolphe, the other guests are aghast because of the association with Hitler. Especially incensed is the pompous, humorless host, Pierre (Charles Berling), who is Vincent’s best friend. Their increasingly heated argument turns vicious when Vincent perversely amends the spelling to Adolf with an F, and Pierre, a professor of literature at the Sorbonne, blows a gasket.

 

Pierre and his wife, Élisabeth (Valérie Benguigui), a middle-school teacher who cooks the elaborate dinner for five, have two children, Myrtille and Apollin, whose pretentious names are mocked in the crossfire. The evening becomes a roundelay of insults and accusations in which Vincent is denounced as selfish and Pierre as stingy.

The only guest who seems insulated is Claude (Guillaume de Tonquédec), an unmarried trombonist and all-around nice guy who is Élisabeth’s best friend. But when Claude discovers that behind his back the others refer to him as “Plum,” as in “sugarplum fairy,” he responds with a revelation that is not what you might expect.

“What’s in a Name?” was directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, who adapted the screenplay from their original hit play. Except for Mr. Berling, the same actors play the roles they originated on the stage.

The exuberance with which the film strips away its characters’ pretensions strongly resembles that of Yasmina Reza’s comedy “God of Carnage,” which became the much-more-inferior movie “Carnage.” The smug, preening male characters bear the brunt of the satire.

The movie has intellectual snob appeal, especially for the French. These days, to what extent will American audiences react to allusions to Montaigne, Kant, Stendhal and Benjamin Constant, whose novel “Adolphe” inspires the prank?

The scrutiny of baby names eventually leads to guests’ mocking deconstructions of one another’s facial expressions and vocal inflections. In their intensity, the actors’ incisive, impeccably coordinated performances are pitched slightly above normal conversation but not so much that “What’s in a Name?” shatters credibility.

This is frivolous verbal jousting elevated to a blood sport by people who are much more resilient than they let on.

Written and directed by Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, based on their play; director of photography, David Ungaro; edited by Célia Lafitedupont; music by Jérôme Rebotier; production design by Marie Cheminal; costumes by Anne Schotte; produced by Dimitri Rassam and Jérôme Seydoux; released by Under the Milky Way. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. 

WITH: Patrick Bruel (Vincent), Valérie Benguigui (Élisabeth), Charles Berling (Pierre), Judith El Zein (Anna), Guillaume de Tonquédec (Claude) and Françoise Fabian (Françoise).