Review of Populaire (2012) by Adam F — 04 Oct 2013

"Populaire" is a quirky, charming story that will surprisingly make you care about who is the fastest typist in the world. We're not talking typing on a keyboard here though, this is about typewriter typing because this is not only a French film, it's a French period piece set in the 1950s. It's set when most women's greatest aspirations were to be stewardesses or the secretary of a hot business man. If you can just stay with me on this, I'll give you a quick summary of what you can expect, followed by why the film works so well. The film follows Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), a woman who's never really been good at much in her life but dreams of becoming a secretary. Things don't exactly go well for her at first. She doesn't even wear glasses or her hair pinned up! She impresses her potential employer Louis Échard (Romain Duris) when she proves herself to be a prolific typist, a fact that makes him set aside how clumsy and disorganized she is. Échard decides to employ her, more so that he can train himself a champion than for her lackluster secretary skills. At first, things seem to be going great. They enter the competition, ready to blow everyone away. A major oversight on both their parts is that she types like someone who's never had to render a text quickly, by poking at the letters one by one with her index fingers. After a big defeat, Échard is nonetheless determined to make her into a star athlete. Complicating things is the fact that both of them are very attracted to each other but must keep their emotions distant for the sake of the office and the competition. As they train and get closer to their goal, their relationship blossoms. Rose gains quite the reputation but Échard's insecurities risk derailing the whole thing.

The biggest surprise with the film is the actual competitions between Rose and her combatants. I know this might sound outlandish but hear me out. When you're typing on a keyboard, that's quite boring and we've seen it spiced up in some techno-thrillers with zippy computer simulations but it never really works. Imagine however, typing on a keyboard where there is no way to erase mistakes. You're racing against the clock, trying to reach speeds of 500 characters per minute. On top of that, you have to manually load and unload the paper you're typing onto, manually switch the machine to type on a new line and there's that constant fear that the keys are going to get stuck. Now that is something far removed from the simple clicking of a couple of keys as words appear on your monitor; this is the furious clicking and clanking as these then-revolutionary machine stamp teeny letters onto a ribbon so hard that it then imprints itself onto the paper. There's real tension in the competitions because you see this whole room full of women, furiously typing and trying to get through their text without making a single mistake (each of which costs you a whopping 100 characters on your score). Everyone is in the same league, so their paces are pretty much the same. All of a sudden though, you'll start to see the lineup forming as the contestants start to reach the end of the first line. There's that "ding" that sounds as she nears the end of the sheet of paper and she lifts up her left hand, gives the machine a smack and it's off to the next line. Everyone else soon follows but by glance you can start to see that some people are falling behind and when they finally reach the end of the page, it's a whole other story as the ladies furious rip the paper out from the machine and scramble to stick the next one in. There are multiple scenes like this and all of them actually feature our leading lady Déborah doing her own typing. Now that is exciting.

Away from the machines, there's a very genuine romantic story developing between Rose and her boss Échard. The actors have great chemistry and some pretty good comedic timing too. You really start to care about the competition (even before the gripping sequences) because you want these two succeed. There's also something really relatable about Rose's humble beginning because we've all been there, struggling to learn how to type properly when it would be so much easier to just look down at the keyboard and poke at the letters instead of having to come up with all of these tricks to memorize which fingers go where and where all the keys are. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Échard and Rose colour-code her fingers and the keys on her machine so that she can easily remember which fingers go where. That's really clever. I can't speak for the English dub or subtitles that will come when the movie hits North American theatres but the French audio was snappy and funny while keeping the mood light. There's some good slapstick, just the right dose that brings some extra laughs in there too. The mood stays light, the sparks fly and there are some genuinely sexy moments too. The main characters are likable and the side characters enrich the story (Bérénice Bejo is a particular standout as an ex of Échard, a friend and tutor to Rose and a matchmaker to both).

I'm urging you to go see a movie that sounds like it would be ridiculous but really charmed me. This is no blockbuster and it isn't going to be a sweeping romance either but not all movies need to be big. It's very enjoyable and will leave you feeling light and cheerful; it'll make your day. (Theatrical version on the big screen, September 21, 2013).