Liliane (Isabelle Huppert) has a very dull life. She works at the pate factory, eats meals by herself and watches television quiz shows. It's been like this for many years and what her co-workers don't know is that she used to be 'Laura'...France's Eurovision* music contest winner. Unfortunately, she was in the contest the same year as ABBA and so much for that! But a new co-worker, young Jean recognizes her as his father is a HUGE Laura fan. So he works on her to try to get her to agree to a benefit concert...which isn't easy because she's determined not to return to her old life. What's next? See this nice little romance and find out for yourself.While Huppert is no great singer, she does a nice job with the songs written by Pink Martini--an amazing American group that sings in dozens of different languages and styles. They are the reason I was eager to see the film and while she's not even close to the quality of the lead, China Forbes, she is believable. A cute May-December romance that manages to have many of the usual clichés for the genre...but also manages to be just a bit better. Well worth seeing--especially with a loved one.By the way, if you like this film you may also like "Iris Blonde", an Italian film about a man who was a Eurovision performer in his past as well.*By the way, you don't hear them call the contest 'Eurovision' and I can only assume it has something to do with trademarks or the like. You also cannot use 'Olympic' for similar reasons.

'Souvenir' is the name of the song that propelled French singer Liliane to second place behind Abba in the 'European Song Contest' ("Those Swedes cheated for sure"). (Trivia fact: In real life, when Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, 1974, France did not enter. The actual runner-up was Italy's former winner Gigliola Cinquetti with the evocative 'Sì' ('Yes'), which Italian television refused to broadcast live in case it was seen as trying to influence the following month's divorce referendum.) Like so many Eurovision - sorry, Euro*pean* Song Contest entrants, Liliane's career failed to blossom and decades later she is holding down a dull job in a pâté factory. She finds herself attracted (despite his awful yellow moustache) to wannabe boxer Jean, 22 and still living with his parents. As their relationship develops, Jean coaxes Liliane into relaunching her career. Can she once again represent France on the international stage?As Liliane, Isabelle Huppert does not have a marvellous singing voice and is rather stiff in executing the stage performances that were, apparently, choreographed for her. But she leaves behind the usual ice maiden, wafting-through-scenes-as-if-she-is-not-really-in-them shtick used in so many of her other films to make Liliane a sympathetic character who is hesitant to set herself up for another failure but sorely tempted by the lure of the stage. Kévin Azaïs, as Jean, is not stretched by the script but is perfectly competent."I wanted to make a movie for Sunday afternoons" said director Bavo Defurne when he introduced the film at the 2016 London Film Festival. The amount of shagging - albeit without nudity - it contains means 'Souvenir' is unlikely to turn up in BBC2's Sunday PM schedules, and I fear the cheesy song with which Liliane once more attempts Eurovision glory is likely to end up on the right-hand side of the scoreboard - whoever wrote it obviously has not watched the Contest since the 1970s! But this feel-good film, with its central characters for whom the viewer really does want the best, is itself a sweet-natured winner.

The day Isabelle Huppert turns in a bad performance is the day Donald Trump builds a 'Welcome To The US' Hotel on the Mexican border and mans it himself 24/7 dispensing coffee and cake to one and all. But Huppert is defenceless against sloppy writing. Take this: In Souvenir she works in a factory simply adding topping to slabs of pate. It's semi- skilled and that's being kind. The feeling is she's been doing the job for several years yet the writers go out of their way to isolate her from her colleagues; she works on a bench by herself although there are others in the room; she lunches alone in the canteen although work colleagues are in groups of two or three at adjacent tables, when the bell goes at 5 p.m. she walks out alone, takes the bus and sits alone. She never seems to leave her apartment nor has any visitors. Enter a new employee, early twenties (although she doesn't look it in real life Huppert is 63), he thinks he knows her and soon claims she is an ex- singer who sang in the Eurovision Song Contest some 20 or 30 years ago and what's more the boy's father was in love with her back then. She denies this but he keeps pestering her, finally causing her to miss her bus home. No problem, he has a motor-bike. She invites him in to her well-appointed apartment and admits she IS Laura, the ex-singer. He says that he himself is a boxer but offers no details. Soon he asks if she will sing at a small concert at his club. She declines. End of story. Not quite. He disappears from the factory. She asks the supervisor who tells her the boy was only a temp. Cut to a gym. Huppert appears asking for the boy. Question: How has she, a loner, located the very gym at which he trains? You tell me cause the writers didn't feel it was important enough. She now agrees to perform on condition there's no PR. A TV crew turn up. She tells the boy to get lost. They wind up in bed, natch. Even at 63 you can count the number of straight men who would kick Huppert out of bed on the fingers of one thumb so the boy succumbs. But at no stage does Huppert say, hang about, I'm a good forty years older than you so on your bike. If you can overlook all this sloppiness chances are you'll enjoy this rom-com, after all it stars Huppert and better than that it doesn't get.

And that is what matters.This is an unapologetic 'feel good' film, which could fall into being saccharine but for Isabelle Huppert's fine performance as actress and chanteuse. The film wishes to recall the musicals from Hollywood's classic era in a decidedly modern way. e.g. with mobile telephones.The premise is that Liliane (Huppert) was once a rising singer, whose stage name was Laura, until her marriage to her manager fell apart. Afterwards she withdrew into such obscurity that no one would guess a pate packer was once a rising star who represented France in the Eurovision song contest.Enter a young man, Jean, who is considerably younger than Lilian but who remembers Laura because his dad was a devotee and Jean knows all her songs. When he confronts Liliane she denies being Laura initially but eventually she admits her former existence. After a one-off performance for Jean's boxing club, Liliane - and Jean - find it hard to return Laura to obscurity and so begins a tale of desire, unlikely love and lost ambition.The story all makes sense when viewed through the eyes of a 1930's audience whose desire for wish fulfilment would be unconcerned with plausibility. To enjoy the film it helps to place realism to one side and follow fantasy and yearning especially when it beckons in the form of Huppert singing love songs with specific hand/arm choreography and costumed in resplendent dresses.Isabelle Huppert did her own singing to music from Pink Martini and lyrics co-written by the director and producer. Her moments on screen singing are some of the best. Is there nothing this woman cannot do? The best way to enjoy this film is when you need a tonic, a pick me up because life is being punchy. It is, as the director said, a "Sunday afternoon" film.