Populaire

Dir: Régis Roinsard

2012

****

Named after the famous Japy Populaire typewriter, Régis Roinsard’s 2012 film Populaire is stylish but quirky and balances romance, comedy and drama in a rather upbeat fashion. Set in the late 1950s, the film focuses on Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), who lives with her widowed father and is destined to marry a son of the local mechanic. Rose travels out of town behind her father’s back and applies for a secretarial job with an insurance agency run by Louis Échard (Romain Duris). Secretarial work was the height of fashion, with every young women believing it to be the gateway to an exciting and adventurous lifestyle. Louis gives Rose the job over the other more qualified interviewees after she desperately types with extraordinary speed using only two fingers. Her first week is a bit of a disaster but Louis tells her to compete in a speed-typing competition if she wants to keep the job. While Rose makes the finals, she ultimately loses her first typing competition. Louis then begins training Rose to become the fastest typist in the world. He makes a bet with his best friend, Bob Taylor - who is married to his old sweetheart, Marie - that Rose can win the regional competition. Louis begins to train Rose at his home, but he sets strict rules to prevent others from knowing that Rose is staying in his boyhood bedroom. He begins to teach her to type with all ten fingers and Louis insists she take piano lessons (taught by Marie) to strengthen her fingers. As she struggles to learn to type with ten fingers, Louis encourages her, colour-coding the keys on her typewriter (matching them with her nail polish) and teaching her better posture. As the seasons change, she excels and Louis and Rose become close. Rose wins her second typing competition, becoming the fastest in her home region of Lower Normandy. It becomes obvious to Louis' friends that Louis and Rose are romantically interested in each other, but Louis insists that a coach mustn't distract his student. They travel together to Paris and the night before the French national competition, Louis and Rose announce their love to one another and have passionate sex. This is where the film changes, as before this scene the film feels like a lighter Coen Brothers offering but the steamy sex scene is like something out of Betty Blue. It’s visually stunning but not at all in keeping with the style or mood of the story to that point. It is where the film revels that it is more than what we first assume and it came as a pleasant surprise. Competing against the current national champion, Rose makes it to the finals, but struggles under the pressure. Before her final match, Louis tells Rose that he had been lying and that he has secretly been recording that her typing speed is regularly faster than her opponent's best record. Angered by his lie, Rose is enraged into winning. Rose is ecstatic at winning and flashes Louis a big smile from on stage. After initially being elated, Louis begins to feel inadequate for somewhat ambiguous reasons. He abandons her and their training sessions. Rose stays in Paris and becomes a French celebrity, endorsed by a major typing firm and begins using their newest typewriter. The film, which went from quaint to passionate suddenly goes full cartoonish Coen Brothers, which isn’t as terrible as it might sound. She never forgets Louis and calls him regularly, although Louis never answers the phone. Louis tries to move on, but is generally depressed and feels inadequate. Rose begins to move on and is soon in New York at the world typing competition. While Rose starts the world competition in New York, Louis struggles with his own feelings. He reaches out to Marie and asks why she chose Bob over him. She says she didn't, he chose to be second place. Louis explains that he could never give Rose the smile and happiness that she had when she won in Paris - the same smile that he saw on Marie on her wedding day to Bob. Marie says, "I was smiling because I felt loved." Louis realises he needs to overcome his own feelings of inadequacy and flies to New York to support Rose in the international typing competition. He arrives just before the second round of the finals ends. As the judges announce the results, Rose is behind and struggling. She runs back stage to fetch her old typewriter that her father had sent her in the post as a sign of support, and Louis confronts her and professes his love. They kiss as the international contestants surround them and in tern say ‘I love you’ in each of their languages. Rose goes on stage for the last round - seemingly energised by love. She races ahead in the final match. About half way in, her typewriter jams. She is too fast for the typewriter. She quickly recovers and races ahead again, winning the competition to be the World's Fastest Typist. Louis walks on stage and kisses her, ending the film on the two holding hands and the audience cheering. We then see that Louis goes on to great success with a new kind of typewriter that can keep up with typists of Rose’s speed. Déborah François is delectable as Rose and Romain Duris is impressive in a role that is unlike anything he’d done in his career before. The film looks glorious with wonderful set-pieces and amazing costumes but it is never over-done. It is a film you could see the Coen Brothers make but probably wouldn’t have the same charm. It is impressive how Roinsard switches from romance to comedy to drama so precisely. The switching themes keeps the film fresh and on its toes, elements are perhaps predictable but overall it took me by pleasant surprise. It is so lazy to compare the film with Amelie – which is exactly what every non-French film critic does with every French female-lead romantic movie. It’s its own movie, an individual quirk that is dripping with style and is full of charm.