Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

monesque This retro '50s comedy is hilarious, charming and a true throwback. They smoke themselves to death (well, ok, the French still do that!); the women are, of course, relegated to lesser roles; there is a certain prudishness about sex, and the thought of an unmarried woman cohabiting with a man causes a bit of a scandal. This is not your modern French film, in other words. Somehow, they make a typing contest exciting. It all works--even if Doris Day would feel at home here (well, except for that slight flash of nipple and the later glimpse of a sex scene). It also adds a layer of insight and gravity that elevates it a bit when the male lead finally confronts his childhood girlfriend. Overall, this works great. Now, finish this and run over and watch "Shall We Kiss?," another great French rom-com.

valadas And nothing more. Too superficial story and plot in terms of events and psychological actions and reactions. A romantic comedy of the kind of cinema (chiefly from Hollywood) used to show in the fifties of last century and that is maybe why the plot takes place in the end of that decade. A girl who lived in a village in Normandy, France aspires not to stay there as a bourgeois married housewife and wants to become a secretary. After being hired by an insurance businessman she astonishes him by her extraordinary typing speed and being himself a competitive person he intends to make her a champion and leads her to take part in typewriting championships first in France and finally in New York. She got first place in all of them and becomes World Typewriting Champion in the end. However a troubled love relationship starts between them because his love for competition conflicts often with his love for her. All this is shown in a very simple way with no special dramatic scenes.

Nobody-27 "Populaire" is finely crafted piece of junk that I could barely watch to the end; and watch it I did, but mostly in the same way that one is rubber-necking when passing a really bad car accident.While the sets and performances manage to give us a kitschy feel of the 60s, everything else falls flat on its face: the story is dull, predictable and forced to the same degree that "Armageddon" was forced. Yes I am comparing this film to "Armageddon" - they both share an important "quality" (for lack of a better word): artificially created drama to keep the story moving. In Armageddon, every time the story slows down too much there is a meteor shower, while in "Populaire" boredom is interrupted by senseless arguments between main protagonists - meteor showers of different kinds.Characters are ill-conceived, their motivations inexplicable, their actions everything but funny, and as a result, the film flows like a stale joke told by a three-year old who forgot the punch-line.Someone said that this is a "feel-good" film. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if we ignore the overly sexist world of this film in which men are gods and women are ordered around, we are still left with a sadistic boss who never manages to be likable, his little less psychotic secretary whose motivation is unclear to the very end and their family and friends who manage to stay boring despite suffering from severe mental problems.We never get to believe that the main protagonist really wishes to compete in the speed-typing. As a matter of fact, the only reason she accepts the challenge is because it was a condition for her employment. Why would a boss employ an otherwise useless secretary just to have her compete in speed-typing? None of those things make any sense in the film, we are just supposed to accept that speed-typing was a world-class event in the 60s (it was not), that your average boss is crazy about your winning a meaningless competition, and that women were aching to work as secretaries, while male bosses were naturally psychotic, and that all that was fun somehow. To make it harder to suspend one's disbelief, the main protagonist is showed typing in an entirely impossible manner. Normally, actors and directors go out of their way to try and portray such detail with as much realism as possible, but here, the director has thrown caution to the wind, probably in an attempt to make the film less boring; however, it achieved the exact opposite.Here and there it seemed that "Populaire" was meant to be a little quirky, the way "Delicatessen" or "Amelie" was... or maybe I just wished for some redemption for the time wasted watching it. As you may guess by now, that didn't pan either.In the end what we are left with is an inexplicably dumb premise, with shallow characters, leading us on a wild-goose chase of forced emotions and relationships. All in all, one of the worst films of recent French cinema.

secondtake Populaire (2012)A French comedy, set in the late 1950s, and centering around a typing championship? Yes, bizarre, and warm and funny. I liked it a lot.The star here is the completely delightful Deborah Francois, who is cast and who acts a bit like an Audrey Hepburn type, which is a total compliment. Not that Francois needs that kind of comparison—she takes on the task of learning to type with enormous focus and humble prowess. With two fingers. And she almost wins a competition that way. Enter the other star, a bigger name in France, Romain Duris. He's a comic oddball, meant to be very handsome but not a hunk (sorry Romain). He depends on his wry, underplayed humor to win the hearts of the females in each movie—and in the audience. He takes on Francois with the idea of teaching her to use all her fingers and maybe, with some serious athletic training, compete for the big time. At typing.It's a farce, but overflowing with charm. The sets and colors are wonderful per- 60s "gay" and light. French style. There is an ongoing critique built in (in a watery way) about how women in that era have typing as their ultimate goal. And typing for men. The irony (and falseness) are apparent.There is inevitably a troubled romance that gets stirred in the mix—and it's a classic mismatch made in heaven.In all, well done, funny, and smart. And styling right to the end with the big finale—well, I can't say where or why. See it.