Movie Review: Populaire

Populaire (2012) by Régis Roinsard. 
With  Romain Duris, Déborah François, Bérénice Bejo and Shaun Benson


Here's the plot (SPOILER ALLEART!!)

It's 1958 and the protagonist of this French comedy is Rose. She's a small town girl with great ambition and the terrific ability of typing very fast with only two fingers. Her father is the local drugstore owner and wants Rose to be the salesgirl, but he doesn't know that meanwhile Rose has taken a few interviews for secretary jobs, for which she's terrible at.


Even so, Monsieur Louis Échard gives her the job in his insurance agency because he unterstood that her ability can take Rose very far in the competion for the fastest typist. If she wants the job, she has to compete. But after losing her first match, Monsieur Échard decides to train Rose himself and make her moved in his own home.


Read More
Rose's used to type only with her pointer fingers, so Monsieur Échard contraives a method to help her typing with all fingers : he colors the keys of the typewriter in different color and each color corrisponds to a finger, then she has to copy a book every month and have piano lessons from Marie Taylor, a friend of Monsieur Échard and ex girlfriend before he went to war and now married to Monsieur Échard's American friend Bob.


Rose starts to know Monsieur Échard better and understands that he always has been considered from his family and himself a mediocre type. 

Monsieur Échard, in the meantime, starts to feel something for Rose, but remains silent so she won't lose her focus on the competition. In fact, after moths of training , she starts to win and arrives at the final match where she has to compete against French champion. 

The night before the big match Rose and Monsieur Échard have a fight and after they calm down they end up in bed together, but after Rose won the final and became the new French champion Monsieur Échard tells her that he slept with her because that was what she needed at the time and that for the World Championship she will be train by the major typewriter company owner and his son. Then he walks away.

After a few month, Rose is in New York to compete against champions from all over the world and has no problem to get to the final against the American champion, but still she misses Monsieur Échard. 
Meanwhile, Marie and her husband Bos are trying to convince Monsieur Échard to go and get Rose back because is obvious that he's still in love with her, so he and Bob flying to NY.

As any good comedy, Monsieur Échard arrives in the exact moment when Rose has a break down before the final and goes behind the stage to talk to her. Rose is immediately feeling better, goes back on stage and win the Wolrd Championship!


I know, I'm starting being tedious reviewing only French movies, I promise this is the last (only for a while!)...Romain Duris is my favourite French actor and this movie is another proof of his acting skills. The soundtrack and the clothes are pretty badass, the movie worth a view only for those!

Ranking: 3 /5