"Populaire" is Terrific Fun

The recent French romantic comedy "Populaire" depends heavily on the fact that it takes place at the end of the 1950s, when a bright young woman named Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François) considers a secretarial job for an insurance firm to be something to aspire to. Her new boss, Louis Échard (Romain Duris) quickly dubs her a terrible secretary, but is intrigued by her ability to type at incredible speeds. He maneuvers her into competing in speed typing competitions, becoming her coach and biggest supporter. Is there any doubt that his prickly exterior will eventually soften, and the two will end up together, just as Rose faces her greatest challenge on the world stage? But as always, it's the execution that makes all the difference.

Romances and competition films have similar structures, and it's a mystery to me why they're not paired up more often to such good effect. My guess is that the filmmakers have trouble balancing the two sides of the story, and tend to lose the character drama as the sports cliches take hold. "Populaire" manages the trick by throwing its full weight behind the love story, which is very much a new spin on the old "Pygmalion" plot. The leads have wonderful chemistry and they have plenty of room to build up good characters and establish their onscreen relationship. Déborah François is charming and fresh, while Romain Duris comes off as a jerk at first, but slowly metamophoses into someone worth rooting for.

What I really appreciated about "Populaire" was that it's fairly straightforward, with few of the maddening little arbitrary complications that tend to plague most modern romantic comedies. When the roadblocks do come up - Échard still having feelings for an old flame Marie (Bérénice Bejo), and Rose rising to greater fame, they come up organically and they're earned. The end of the second act, when sports movies generally toss in some new group of rivals, or romances have an old boyfriend return out of the blue, avoids the common pitfalls by digging deeper into its characters. Rose has had all the growth and development so far, so now we turn to Échard and figure out his motivations, and see how he's been changed by the experience.

One of my favorite segments of the film is a brief series of scenes where Rose is left with nowhere to go on Christmas, so Marie takes her to Échard's house and introduces her to his assembled family as Échard's fianceé. A different film would have dragged out the deception, or inflated its importance. "Populaire" does not, simply using the evening to get the pair used to the notion that they make a good romantic pair, and Échard's family are neither seen nor mentioned again. Or then there's the running series of bets that Échard makes with his friend Bob (Shaun Benson) on the typing competitions. This is not a plot point at all, but a gimmick used to illustrate Échard's character. It's revealed to Rose very early on, and it barely seems to matter to her. How many other romantic films have blown similar bets all out of proportion?

As a result, "Populaire" is a breeze to watch, very familiar and predictable and pleasant. The typing competitions are a lot of fun, exciting and agreeably silly at the same time. A lot of humor comes from the subtle satire of the time period, with lots of visual caricatures of businessmen and typists, particularly the period fashions. The production design is very bright and colorful, heavy on the pastels and graphic patterns. Homages to older films are everywhere and brief appearances are made by older stars. You get the feeling that if you just walked a few blocks away from the clattering typists, you might run across a Jacques Demy musical taking place at the same time.

I think I reacted so well to "Populaire," because there have been far too many romantic-comedies that have gotten it so wrong in recent years, too goofy, too melodramatic, too complicated, too subversive, too retro, or too modern. Or more often, they get all the right components lined up, but end up with all the wrong proportions. "Populaire" is perfectly balanced, between the sport and the romance, between Rose and Échard, and between the giddy effervescence of the '60s trappings and the decidedly more forward-thinking attitudes of our heroes toward being in love.
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