Review of Populaire (2012) by Jesse O — 01 Dec 2013

This movie, while good, didn't really click for me. The visual style, and presentation, is certainly very charming, but the film's script is very uneven. It's clear that the film is a tribute to old 50s movies, like something Audrey Hepburn would appear in.

It's basically a tribute to a time in film that's long gone, and the movie pulls it off very well I thought. The film, other than the fact that it's in color, looks like it could've come straight out of the 50s.

The problem is that in concentrating so much of the film on how everything looks and how it sounds, the set design, the costume design, and trying to make sure it feels like it could've come from the 50s, they forgot that they actually had to make the movie, the story, and its characters interesting.

The leads are quite good, Deborah Francois has that old Hollywood starlet feel. She's definitely no Audrey Hepburn, but she has that same type of likable charm and presence, and that's exactly what the film needed.

She's certainly the highlight of the film. Romain Duris is fine too, but I found his character to be a little uninteresting, especially when compared to Deborah. He's certainly good, but I wasn't a big fan of how his character was handled.

The movie lacks substance, it never really feels like these two are falling in love. It really is concentrated in style of substance and actual character development, and that's the film's biggest downfall.

Your film can have the best set design, the costume design, the best score...but if your story isn't interesting then all that, while it's not unimportant, is wasted. You went through all that work trying to make the film look and film genuine, that you forgot the most important part of the film, the part that matters most in the long run, and that's the story and the characters.

And I don't mean to say the film's bad, as implied by the score I gave it, the cast is solid and the film is, visually, very charming. It just should've been much better considering how much work went into everything else.

Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't into this movie that much. It wasn't exactly an interesting story or an heartwarming love story, it's still a perfectly solid movie.