Marilyn En Francais

I’ve taken to regularly visiting Le Figaro online in a sad attempt to keep up on my increasingly embarrassing handle on the French language. Yesterday, I stumbled upon a review for a new film with a funny title: Poupoupidou. The premise? Novelist David Rosseau (Jean-Paul Rove) is desperate for inspiration and travels to the Jura region in eastern France (a place notorious for having the coldest winters in the country) and meets Candice Lecoeur (Sophie Quinton). She is a beautiful, fragile woman that believes she is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.

When she dies from a supposed overdose, Rosseau is unconvinced and starts his own investigation into her past.

I am very much hoping this film gets a stateside release (although it does not look promising) because the trailer and the review have left me torn: the trailer, slick and witty, makes me worry that  the Candice Lecœur character is a mere sensationalized caricature of Marilyn. The review, however, insists that her portrayal is quite the opposite, stating that her incarnation of Marilyn Monroe is nuanced, touching and true.

Director Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s work here is also compared to Otto Preminger’s Laura, and one can easily see the parallels: a writer obsessed with the past life of a dead woman much the same as Dana Andrews’ obsession with Laura’s portrait.

I hope that Mathieu’s film is the invigorating blend of classic Hollywood storytelling and edgy film making that it very much seems it could be.

And I also hope one day I’ll get to see it!