Touches You

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Looking round for the fun mutant monster pig French Horror flick Prey to give as an Easter gift to a friend,I decided to take a look at Prey's co-star Bérénice Bejo's credits.Spotting a credit that I had read a good amount of praise for from its screening on BBC4,I decided that it was a good time to find out how popular populaire is.The plot-France 1959:Wanting to get away from working in the local family shop and the marriage that her dad is pushing her to do, Rose Pamphyle decides to leave the small town behind and go to the big city in order to apply for a job as secretary to insurance agency boss Louis Échard.Sitting at a typewriter for the interview, Pamphyle types up a letter at lightning speed,which leads to Échard hiring Pamphyle on the spot.Seeing Pamphyle get into the rhythm of typing, Échard starts to think that Pamphyle could enter the contest/sport where the best (and fastest) typist in France is found. Initially afraid of joining the event, Pamphyle soon begins to type a new chapter in her life.View on the film:Darting across the screen in burning red hair,the gorgeous Bérénice Bejo gives a wonderful performance as Marie Taylor,whose icy queen bee Bejo melts away to reveal something much more delicate. Surrounding Pamphyle with praise as she enters the contest, Romain Duris gives a dashing performance as Échard by casing him in a shell of savvy confidence,which Duris cracks to show Échard wondering how far he should let his feelings for Pamphyle develop.Catching everyone by surprise with her typing skills,the stunning Déborah François gives an alluring performance as Pamphyle.Leaving the village behind, François gives Pamphyle a meek appearance which François splendidly peels away to paint Pamphyle with a fiery passion to do things her own way.Set just as the French New Wave was kicking off,co-writer/(along with Daniel Presley and Romain Compingt) director Régis Roinsard & cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman largely stay away from New Wave flashes, (although they do find room for a small tribute to Hitchcock's Vertigo) to instead tap into the ultra glossy romantic Comedy/Drama movies of the early 60's.Backed by a sweet score from Emmanuel D'Orlando & "Robin" Coudert, (who is usually a fantastic Horror composer) Roinsard & Schiffman lavish the film with an immaculate,chic shine,from sweeping crane shots making the typing contest nail- biting set-pieces,to the ultra-stylised,candy coloured clothes and location vividly popping on the screen.For the blossoming romance between Échard & Pamphyle,the screenplay by Roinsard/ Presley and Compingt keep things largely light and fluffy,but link some great rough edges to keep things from being too sickly sweet,as Pamphyle's attempt to find her own path is found with a delightfully quirky sense of humour.Sliding the genre into the 60's Rom/Drama's,the writers keep a run on the breezy romance with an exciting Sports lap,which along with impressively making type writing look like a stadium-worthy event (!) also leads to Pamphyle discovering how populaire she is.

A young woman who 'terrible' at work (not sexist of course because this movie is set in the 1950's) falls for an older boss. For some strange reason, the man only admires her typing skills and pushes her on the win typing 'championships' but she has to stay in his house. Lovely clothes, make-up and sets do not make up for a pointless story. It is not even funny, the hero's face is funny and you expect some funny turns which never arrive. The problem with the heroine's father is never described or resolved. The man doesn't even give up his cigarettes after he wins the woman, although she hates his smoking. Another pointless addition is the graphic sex scene. I was so bored, couldn't wait for this drivel to finish so that I could get out.

A very sugary fairy-tail esque romantic comedy with plenty of style and flavour. The male lead seems to have the issues, unlike the female lead, which was a nice reversal. It's nothing too overly dramatic and stupid like most romantic comedies sercombe to in their third acts. Perhaps because of the "sports movie" element to it.Overall it's very sweet. You'll love Déborah François in the lead role, along with Romain Duris as a man who makes very odd facial expressions. The cinematography is very beautiful and lush. Highly recommended for anyone.

"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.