Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

good back-story, and good acting

Awesome Movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

An entertaining, easy-going flick about the business. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal play characters with their names in an all-but-identical relationship. Strain creeps into their relationship with the realities of one being a movie star and both of them having to question what it is to be a screen actor.Now 8 and 1/2 I'm quite sure this is not but it has a brisk pace and a wry, insider's eye to keep a good balance between self-analysis and fun. Gainsbourg is a good actress for such a role capable from veering between gravitas and whimsical silliness in a short space of time. Attal's own engaging buffoon husband is mirrored with Terence Stamp's ageing, good-humoured Lothario and an intensely Gallic sub-relationship as Attal's sister and brother in law war over circumcising their unborn child.London and Paris feature but are not particularly beautifully shot; the disposable nature of the film is deepened somewhat by a well-judged, wistful original score by Brad Mehldau. 6/10

Technically a great comedy... if it weren't for the insistent promotion of the crime of Male Genital Mutilation.Technically, the movie could be too quickly evaluated as a great fresh humorist comedy about the couple Yvan and his actress wife Charlotte, who as a star is exposed to the temptation of matrimonial infidelity. This main plot evolves as a state of the art comedy with a happy ending.However, the subplot about Male Genital Mutilation (circumcision) is insistent and forceful. The story of the baby expected throughout the movie by Yvan's sister is an important element of this insidious propaganda. In effect, the film pretends to have a happy ending; however we learn at the very end, at a time when everything else seems to happy end, that this baby will not be spared this heinous crime. This unfortunate turn of event for the baby is actually presented as a positive resolution of the conflict between Yvan's Jewish sister and her French 'goy' (non-Jewish) husband, who have been quarreling about it since the beginning. The father has been resisting too softly to effectively guaranty the success of his paternal protective duty, so it really should not come as a surprise to the audience that we learn at the very end that he has surrendered.The promotion of this crime against male children Human Rights is reinforced by an important group nude scene supposed to be very funny. This scene involves many adults (the crew of a film being shot within the main plot of the movie), all naked while shooting a love scene involving the heroin star actress Charlotte (she had stated in a mood swing that she could not shoot that scene if everyone else wasn't naked too (ha ha, funny from her director to take her on her word, really, funny!). However, it is interesting to note that the only genitalia we actually get to see are the male ones, and they seem to all (or most) be missing their foreskin, as in to say that such is the reality of the French male anatomy, as in to make a statement: 'mutilated male pride'. Fortunately, it is not true that all French males are so emasculated. Considering how sensitive children can be with their body image, I am saddened that many boys, who may be blessed with a normal intact anatomy (and responsible human parents), may feel traumatized by the view of such a distorted reality, feeling that they may be abnormal, when they are the ones that should feel normal.The main characters of Charlotte and Yvan are interpreted by the real life couple of actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and actor/film maker Yvan Attal. At the time of the movie, their baby boy must have been around 2-3 years old. Considering the importance of the sub-theme of Male Genital Mutilation in the movie, and the somewhat autobiographic style of the film, I felt forced to imagine that the movie was perhaps an attempt by the two protagonists and Yvan Attal in particular, to seek some redeeming moral support by the mirror of the audience who is skillfully tricked into considering the crime against their baby boy as a happy event, to be associated with all the other happy ending elements of the movie, while making a statement of emasculated male pride through the group nude scene. This exhibitionism of their private life is a feeling I would have rather avoided, but the real life facts easily findable online and the insistence on the subplot on Male Genital Mutilation naturally got my imagination going.Most importantly, it seems rather careless to propose a film apparently for a wide audience so frankly on the wrong side of the Human Rights, and so frankly trying to justify a crime of child physical and psychological abuse, child genital mutilation, child torture, while promoting a multi-ethnic and religious married couple's conflict resolution in favor of barbaric ritual practices versus common sense and universal Human Rights.This film is in my mind, well intentioned or not, a de-facto criminal piece of work which participates in the massive conspiracy against defenseless non-consenting underage males' physical integrity, with the full weight of the state of the art of modern comedy making. Such piece of work should be severely censored and participants seriously sentenced, as a deterrent for others who would otherwise dare plotting against children's health and security. 'In a perfect world', far beyond reasonable freedom of expression contingencies, such a crime against a child's Human Rights could not possibly be presented as a happy ending without legal sanctions.

Some people who commented the movie here seem to have misunderstood a few things. I don't think Charlotte cheats on Yvan, I don't know where some people here got the idea, but even if we can see she contemplates the idea, she never does it, which shows an understanding of her husband predicament. Also, Yvan's sister and her husband are only discussing whether their BABY should be circumcised. Never was it mentioned that the circumcision would include the husband as some here have written. Some were thinking that this story had nothing to do in that movie but I think it has everything to do with it, since I think this movie is about couples that deal and overcome problems created by the very nature of the individuals in the couple, and this can exist in many various ways. It is about how you can deal with something that is not changeable (Charlotte is an actress and isn't going to change that, and Nathalie is Jewish and it is not going to change, she actually clings onto that in a very selfish - she ponders her baby's interest, his very identity while chainsmoking throughout her pregnancy, to the ridiculous despair of some reviewers - and ridiculous way - her own father calls her a crazy lot...)The story is therefore more about how Yvan learns to deal with the fact that his wife is something that he won't be able to change, hence his adaptation.This is a grown-up romantic comedy. Love isn't a given forever once you marry, as all American romantic comedies seem to tell (they mostly describe - in a very predictable way - how love begins, never how it is nurtured, therefore giving the feeling that American romantic comedies are designed for tweens who have never been in love before). This seems to be Yvan Attal's main concern judging from his other movie "Ils se marierent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants" (the traditional last sentence of french fairy tales): Falling in love is not really difficult, it is actually very easy as illustrated in this movie by the encounter with the very lovable Geraldine, the theatre student. STAYING in love IS the difficult part, and this is what this movie is all about...Also, some cultural references may have not be understood by people not familiar with France (Ophelie Winter in the train, Nagui, Marc Lavoine and Catherine Lara in the restaurant are all famous folks in France, the reference to some of the Paris Saint Germain football club fans) and may have made some scenes a bore while they were actually pretty funny for those able to fully grasp the situation.Overall, an interesting subject, nicely done and a charming cast (again unlike others have said the actress didn't need to look like J-Lo and the actor like Brad Pitt to believe in their mutual attraction. Like only good-looking people can seduce...)

Now the description of this movie immediately got me interested: real-life husband and wife, Yvan & Charlotte, play a husband and wife named Yvan & Charlotte! Charlotte is an actress (as in real-life), and Yvan is jealous about the scenes between her and her leading men. Now isn't that something that immediately makes you think you're voyeuring into some real-life predicaments? Well, it didn't work. There was no chemistry between Charlotte and Terrance Stamp (John), the supposed object of jealousy for Yvan. You just didn't buy the idea that Yvan could ever be jealous of John.There was an interesting sub-story involving Yvan's sister who is a Jew married to a Christian. The story involves circumcision of a baby boy that will be born to them soon. I wish they spent more time on this substory rather than the main story. The substory was so much more interesting.