May contain mild spoilers
Populaire is a French romantic drama set in the late 1950s. It’s a
simple, predictable but sweet film about a provincial girl setting out to
conquer the world. Small town girl Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François) has dreams
of being a typist and one day travels by bus to her nearest town to apply for a
job with a local Insurance Man, Louis Échard (Romain Duris). Her lack of style
and understanding of metropolitan life as well as general clumsiness make her
stand out from the other applicants, but not in the way she hoped.
Demonstrations of her speed typing though, peak the interest of her would be boss
and he hires her before deciding to train her for speed typing competitions. With
a frisson of sexual excitement and the possibility of proving her father wrong,
Rose begins to excel in the unusual sport in which she partakes.
It’s obvious to see from the get
go, who the target audience for this film is. Shortly before it began, from our
usual seats At the Back, my
girlfriend whispered in my ear, “Look at all the shiny heads”. It was true that
we were the youngest people in the screening by about thirty years. The film
has a simplistic charm and the sort of slow, blossoming romance that will
appeal more to the older generation than to those of us with our own teeth and
you can tell from the very first scenes exactly where it’s going and what will
happen but sometimes it’s nice to get that from a film. Occasionally I don’t
mind the odd ‘awww’ moment from a movie but I don’t think Populaire will be popular with all.
To me it felt as though the movie
was attempting to cash in slightly on the success of Mad Men. There have been a few TV shows and movies with Man Men-esque style and themes in recent
years but this is one of the more overt examples. The men wear sharp suits and
drink to excess while the women are attempting to assert a new world order in
which they are treated as equals. The heroine spends half of the movie as a
feminist, whether she means to or not, but this slides away towards the second
half when she becomes a celebrity due to her successes. It felt odd that early
scenes were about empowerment and equality but this was just forgotten later
on. There were other things which surprised me such as Rose moving in with her
handsome boss (albeit in separate rooms). For a small town girl in conservative
1950s France,
this felt like an unlikely step. What it allows though is round the clock
training and the steady build up of sexual tension.
There was something that slightly
spoiled the film for me though it is no fault of the filmmakers. In the UK, before a
film we get a title card from the BBFC. This displays the film’s rating, 12A in
this case, and briefly outlines why the film got that particular rating. For
example before an 18 rated film the frame might read something along the lines
of “Strong bloody violence from the start, moderate drug use and scenes of a
sexual nature”. It’s something that is relatively new to British cinemas. The
problem is though that it occasionally creates spoilers. Here for example, the
caption read “Contains one moderate sex scene”. Because of this, I knew before
the film started that the couple would get together and that there would be a
sex scene. Populaire isn’t the sort
of film that will surprise you with its plot but it’s nice not to know what
will happen and how many times before you see a movie. The worst example of the
BBFC fluffing up a film incidentally was one in which the caption read “Contains
one scene of a hanging”, so I spent the whole movie trying to work out which
character it would be.
As I said in my opening, Populaire is a sweet film. You could
argue that it is occasionally a little too sweet but I was happy to go with it.
It’s the perfect date movie for adults who aren’t interested in exploding cars
or wise-cracking super heroes. Both leads are good and very watchable but didn’t
impress me so much that I feel the need to write at length. Déborah François
has an innocence about her but the sort of innocence which you can tell is on
the cusp of exploration. She is cute and adorable and to me looked a lot like
English actress Gemma Arterton. She portrays the journey to adulthood well and
looks both sweet and funny when typing away with her two outstretched fingers. Romain
Duris is charming and handsome and I bought his coach/mentor role. To be honest,
he didn’t have an awful lot to do but he had great chemistry with François. Bérénice
Bejo has a small but important role but like Duris, isn’t given much to do with
it. I’d have liked to have seen more of her. Acting wise. OK, everything wise. Mélanie Bernier plays the perfect bitch in her scenes.
The film looks great and has an
authentic period feel. It also manages to make the ‘sport’ of speed typing
exciting and dramatic. It uses split screen and fancy reverse close ups of the
typewriters to get the audience ‘close to the action’ and it ramps up the sound
of the keys to aid the tension. It’s a very well choreographed film, from the
typing to dancing to sex scene, which is beautifully done. The scene takes
place in a darkened room with a flashing light outside. The light switches
between red and blue, illuminating the two bodies in frequently changing
colour. It looks spectacular. There is also a delightful title sequence which
is reminiscent of those made famous in films of the period. The orange, cream,
blue and green colour palate looks great and there’s a perfect font and really
good animation. The costume design, as I’ve already mentioned, is spot on.
In the end Populaire isn’t going to surprise you. What it lacks in twists and
reveals it makes up for in its sweet telling of a traditional romantic story.
The leads are fine and the era is visually pleasing but it won’t stay in the
memory for long. It somehow makes speed typing exciting and entertaining and
balances fun and social commentary well but don’t expect anything groundbreakingly
original.
6/10
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