It's Dodgeball! Populaire comes across like one of those quirky sports movie pastiches complete with a training montage. Except here the fun is centred on, wait for it… the world of international speed-typing. And it's set in France in the 50s. Taking its name from the snazzy new typewriter available to the contestants, Populaire works like billy-o to make us fall in love with it, but caring one way or another is the hard toughest job at hand.
It's 1959 and handsome insurance salesman Louis Echard (Duris) is holding interviews for a new secretary and smalltown girl Rose Pamphyle (Francois) has taken herself off to the big city to compete with the worldly girls vying for the coveted job. Her heavy hunt-and-peck style may be unladylike and looks awkward, but Louis can't deny the speed at which she types. Or the way she looks. He tells her the job is hers, but only if she enters into the regional speed-testing competition and Rose reluctantly accepts…
If that synopsis sounds half-baked it's because the movie is, as this two-hander fails to find strong drive for both its characters. We never really get to know why entering Rose in the speed-testing competition is a must for him and it remains unclear what she sees in him. It's uncertain too what the movie is trying to say re gender roles. First it looks like she resists his determination to do things his way (he wants her to touch-type, she wants to do her own thing) but then she gives in and the movie forgets all about that to concentrate on the competition. The subplot involving his latent love for childhood friend Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) complicates things late on to such a degree that it makes the finale fall over.
It looks gorgeous, though. Going one further than Mad Men in the wardrobe department, Populaire's visuals have that 50s magazine ad look to them while the typing scenes breathe life into the drab plotting. Okay, so typing isn't exactly cinematic, but the rush of the tap-tap-tap of the keys and the swish of the cylinder as the ladies battle each other to reach those seemingly impossible records of letters-per-minute give the competition scenes unexpected oomph.
