Before Polar Park, there was Poupoupidou: this funny investigation can be seen again on Arte (review)

This snowy film with Jean-Paul Rouve was very popular with Première when it was released.

He is Parisian and the author of successful thrillers. She is the blonde effigy of Belle de Jura cheese, the star of all of Franche-Comté, convinced that she was, in another life, Marilyn Monroe…

When they meet in Mouthe, the coldest town in France, he is completely out of inspiration and she is already dead. “Probable suicide with sleeping pills” concludes the gendarmerie. David Rousseau doesn’t believe it. By investigating Candice Lecoeur’s past, he is sure to find inspiration for a new novel…

In Poupoupidou, rebroadcast this evening on Arte, Candice Lecoeur (aka Sophie Quinton) lives in Mouthe, a village in the Jura with a freezing climate. Weather presenter convinced of being the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, this mysterious and captivating blonde knows the throes of a regional celebrity. Until the day she is found lifeless.

This tragic fate identical to that of the American star becomes a source of inspiration for the writer David Rousseau (Jean-Paul Rouve). “I didn’t want to play a copy of Marylin, explained the actress who plays her when it was released in 2011. It is simply mentioned and suggested.“If the resemblance is indeed not striking, the aura released by Candice nevertheless reveals disturbing similarities…

First recommends it to you, just like the series which was recently created with this same writer-investigator. Because the director of Poupoupidou, Gérald Hustache-Mathieuwas able to present his story a decade after the release of his film in Polar Park, and this new thriller was a hit on Arte.

Here is our review of the film, accompanied by a link to that of the series.

Told in voice-over by the dead woman (as in Sunset Boulevard) and by the apprentice detective (as in any good film noir), this story of a provincial starlet plays with déjà vu and would even border on the banal if it were not there were the singular digressions, the surprising off-screen moments and nicely drawn supporting roles: the gothic hotel receptionist, the little hairdresser disguised as a geisha, the young brigadier who is preparing to join the Canadian scientific police… All of them have a dream elsewhere. Like David, who thinks he’s James Ellroy, and Candice, who saw herself as the reincarnation of Marilyn. The excellent Jean-Paul Rouve surpasses himself in his most complex role, while Sophie Quinton explodes in that of a ravishing woman who is not at all stupid. Poupoupidou hides, under its funny onomatopoeia, the I Wanna Be Loved by You which precedes it in the famous song. And, beneath devastating humor, magnificent ranges of emotion.