Populaire is like one of those fairy cakes that kids make at birthday parties, the ones where you get to put whatever you like on top. A bit of sports movie here, a bit of screwball romcom there. Add a sprinkling of Mad Men, or so the poster claims on little more than the basis that both are set in the fifties, and a touch of The Artist, again according to the poster, this time protesting that both are French and star Berenice Bejo. And yes, Bejo! But not only is there the beautiful, brilliant, Cannes Best Actress-winning Bejo, we also see two leading performances come courtesy of the dashing Romain Duris (excellent in Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped) and the immensely-talented Belgian, Déborah François. After all, Belgium is so hot right now.

Ultimately of course the cake is ruined. The liquorice allsorts, chocolate buttons and hundreds and thousands all blend into a tasteless, creamy gunk that’s so sweet that poor little Jimmy is sick all over his shoes.

In fact, despite the ostensibly quirky nature of a film based on speed-typing, the film has a formulaic structure and clichéd characters. Smarmy insurance salesman Louis Échard (Duris) has such a crippling inferiority complex that when the fleet-fingered Rose Pamphyle applies to be his secretary he employs her with an eye towards vicarious triumph at the international speed-typing championship, over-looking the fact that she’s otherwise useless at her job. The potentially intriguing aspects of this possessive relationship are swept aside by a tsunami of nauseating nostalgia, cloying attempts at charm and jokes straight from the trashy sitcom stylebook.

The nostalgia is superficial and rose-tinted. There’s a good level of attention to aesthetic details and a fitting (if intensely irritating) soundtrack. But the sexual politics of the 1950s are not so much satirised as celebrated. For all Rose’s obstinacy and talk about wanting a man who sees her as an equal, her story’s message to the modern woman is really that you should forget about self-sufficiency or professionalism because with a cute smile and a single, arbitrary talent you can find fame and fortune by becoming the show pony of a leering sugar daddy patron.

 The whole affair is so tame and anaemic (the ubiquitous pastel colours don’t help matters) that even the awkward love triangle centred on Marie (Bejo) flares up in only one scene. The underlying tension between Louis and Bob (a cringingly clunky performance from Shaun Benson) is developed to the point that they have a slightly-more-competitive-than-usual tennis match, but are otherwise the best of friends.

Mitigating factors in this saccharine catastrophe are scarce. I suppose you could remark on how outrageously hot all the lead characters look in their chic dresses and sharp suits but that will only remind you of the central problem, Populaire is entirely empty of any purpose or depth. This is Régis Roinsard’s first feature and his background is in advertising shows. Wasting a plethora of potentially exciting ingredients, he’s constructed a 2-hour commerical for 1958 that doesn’t even make you want to go there.