Populaire tells the story of Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), who is trained by Louis Échard (Romain Duris) to become the fastest typist in the world through winning the 1959 international speed typing contest in New York City.

Set in 1958–1959, Populaire focuses on Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), who lives with her widowed father and is destined to marry a son of the local mechanic.

Rose travels out of town and applies for a secretarial job with an insurance agency run by Louis Échard (Romain Duris).

Louis learns that Rose can type with extraordinary speed—using only two fingers—and he tells her to compete in a speed-typing competition if she wants the job.

As she struggles to learn to type with 10 fingers, Louis encourages her, colour-coding the keys on her typewriter and teaching her better posture.

They travel to Paris together and the night before the French national competition, Louis and Rose announce their love to one another and have sex.

Rose stays in Paris and becomes a French celebrity, endorsed by a major typing firm and begins using their newest typewriter.

Louis realises he needs to overcome his own feelings of inadequacy and flies to New York to support Rose in the international typing competition.

[5] The actor watched several films starring Cary Grant and James Stewart as well as French classics directed by Marcel Carné and Claude Chabrol to see the differences between the provinces and Paris and the ways in which people behaved and spoke in the 1950s.

[6] Laure Guilbault from Women's Wear Daily reported that the look of Populaire was inspired by Funny Face, The Seven Year Itch and Alfred Hitchcock films.

[6] As Rose is "a young provincial woman", she often wears pretty dresses, while Bejo's character Marie, who is married to an American man, has a casual early Sixties look.

[7] When choosing the pre-existing music, Roinsard combined his love of American lounge music, light jazz and '50s composers with French songs by lesser-known artists such as Jack Ary, Jacqueline Boyer and Les Chaussettes Noires, whose singer Eddy Mitchell appears in the film.

[7] Roinsard added "The end result is close to a musical and I'm delighted since Stanley Donen and Bob Fosse are favourites of mine.

The website's consensus reads, "The cheerfully frothy Populaire may lack substance, but its visual appeal – and director Roinsard's confident evocation of 1950s filmmaking tropes – help carry the day.

[15] Jérôme Vermelin from Metro France commented "Full of charm, this first film by young director Régis Roinsard is carried by an irresistible duo of Romain Duris and Deborah François.

"[16] Liz Beardsworth from Empire gave Populaire three stars and wrote "Roinsard keeps control of a film that vacillates between frothy fun and more serious social comment and cleverly uses subplots and supporting characters (including The Artist's Bérénice Bejo) to touch on weightier themes.

"[17] IndieWire's Kaleem Aftab awarded the film a B− and stated "With a great cast and sufficient laughs, Populaire could find international audiences, but it's no Amelie.

"[18] Boyd van Hoeij, writing for Variety, said the film is "a colorful and impeccably styled romantic comedy that manages to turn the speed-typing competitions of the 1950s into entertaining cinematic fodder.

"[19] He went on to praise the performances of Duris and François, but thought the story did not quite take any unexpected turns or reveal any deeper emotions.