Populaire (2013)
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 59
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 15
The cheerfully frothy Populaire may lack substance, but its visual appeal -- and director Roinsard's confident evocation of 1950s filmmaking tropes -- help carry the day.
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 6
The cheerfully frothy Populaire may lack substance, but its visual appeal -- and director Roinsard's confident evocation of 1950s filmmaking tropes -- help carry the day.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 2,165
Movie Info
Spring, 1958: 21-year-old Rose Pamphyle lives with her grouchy widower father who runs the village store. Engaged to the son of the local mechanic, she seems destined for the quiet, drudgery-filled life of a housewife. But that's not the life Rose longs for. When she travels to Lisieux in Normandy, where charismatic insurance agency boss Louis Echard is advertising for a secretary, the ensuing interview is a disaster. But Rose reveals a special gift - she can type at extraordinary speed.
Cast
-
Romain Duris
Louis Echard -
Déborah François
Rose Pamphyle -
Bérénice Bejo
Marie Taylor -
Shaun Benson
Bob Taylor -
Mélanie Bernier
Annie Leprince Ringu... -
Nicolas Bedos
Gilbert Japy -
Miou-Miou
Madeleine Echard -
Eddy Mitchell
Georges Echard -
Frederic Pierrot
Jean Pamphyle -
Feodor Atkine
André Japy -
Dominique Reymond
Mrs. Shorofsky -
Marius Coluci
Lucien Echard -
Emeline Bayart
Jacqueline Echard -
Yannik Landrein
Léonard Echard -
Nastassja Girard
Evelyne Echard -
Caroline Tillette
Vamp -
Jeanne Cohendy
Françoise -
Serpentine Teyssier
Boarding School Prop...
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Populaire Trailer & Photos
All Critics (59) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (44) | Rotten (15)
It's neatly formatted, but if there's a message in the margins of this manuscript, "Populaire" doesn't spell it out.
Top CriticAs romantic comedy it's uneven, but as an ode to something long gone, "Populaire" hits the right notes.
Even when there's tragedy around the turn, it doesn't matter. Populaire plays like a musical - you expect anyone, at any time, to break into song.
[Populaire] does run through the expected paces with admirable style, with a glossy, Technicolor production design that sometimes makes it seem it might have been made in the '50s, not just set there.
Roinsard, who wrote his feature debut with Daniel Presley and Romain Compingt, is unabashedly in love with cheesy, cornball sentiment, which he dusts off and polishes to a fair-thee-well.
Is this remake really necessary? Maybe not, but to worry about that is to risk missing out on a lot of fun.
There is really no film to compare it to.
After all those words pounded onto the typewriter, this throwback finds a way to capture the big L in any language.
As if Mad Men had never happened, French romantic comedy Populaire takes a breezy, light-hearted approach to the late-1950s world of brooding male bosses and their demurely pretty secretaries.
It works on a design porn level, but that's about it.
It's a gorgeous picture that's highly amusing, allowing viewers to lose themselves in the fantasy of love, rivalry, and typing. Yes, typing. Any film that can make typewriters as cool as hot rods deserves a look.
Never less than cute
There's a breezy throwback quality that adds a modest level of amusement and visual flair to this otherwise predictable French romantic comedy.
A nice throwback, but less typing, please.
This first-time feature from director Regis Roinsard explodes with color and fun as it resurrects the spirit and fashions of those Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies from the 1950s.
director Régis Roinsard makes his feature debut with this utterly adorable romantic comedy which feels like something right out of the 1950's without any annoying tongue-in-cheek irony.
Deft execution by Roinsard and his appealing cast make the film a solid, genially retro entertainment.
Audience Reviews for Populaire
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Foreign Titles
- Mademoiselle Populaire (DE)
The idea of taking an obscure sporting or competitive event as the backdrop for a comedy has been milked to death in recent comedies. We've seen figure-skating in 'Blades of Glory', ping-pong in 'Balls of Fury', and dodgeball in, well, 'Dodgeball'. None of those movies worked for one very simple reason; they revolved around one joke and died stretching it out to feature length. With this knowledge, I expected little from Roinsard's debut feature. Thankfully, he's used the concept of speed-typing as no more than a "MacGuffin". It's simply the backdrop to what is, essentially, a homage to the technicolor world of fifties Hollywood.
France never had this sort of cinema back then and there's a sense that Roinsard is trying to rectify this. The film is awash with references to that golden age of entertainment, from the primary colors of MGM musicals to a Saul Bass influenced credit sequence. There's even a 'Vertigo' homage which, unlike last year's 'The Artist', pays respect in the correct manner. Duris and Francois are playing the sort of roles Rock Hudson and Doris Day would have taken over half a century ago. Due to its fifties setting, accusations of male chauvinism may be leveled but, thankfully, Roinsard makes no concessions to modern sensibilities, (unlike Spielberg's 'Lincoln'). His film bears no resemblance to reality, instead it's set in the world of the cinema. In real-life, Normandy is a drab, grey region, lacking the brightness and color on display here. This is what movies of this nature do, they transport you from the humdrum of reality into a world where something as simple as a room of frantically typing secretaries can explode with the energy of a Busby Berkeley dance number. In French, the word "entertainment" literally translates as "diversion" and, as diversions go, 'Populaire' is one this year's best.
C'est le divertissement!