After the chronicles, the play, then the book, here is now the series. Vintage heartan original, fun and above all comforting idea from Émilie Bibeau arrives on ICI Tou.tv Extra this Thursday.
The 10 10-minute episodes, directed by Rachel Graton, written by Pascale Renaud-Hébert, with a helping hand from Fanny Britt, tell the story of the romantic and professional defeats of a certain Pauline, an unusual literary forty-year-old.
Elle vient de se faire larguer, travaille dans une clinique anticellulite et cherche un sens à tous ses malheurs en puisant dans toutes les directions, citant à la fois Madame Bovary, Les quatre filles du docteur March, pourquoi pas Louis-Ferdinand Céline, ou… Céline (Dion) tout court.
Ça vous donne une idée du ton, aussi riche qu’absurde, aussi spirituel que terre-à-terre, avec une bonne dose d’autodérision assumée. Il faut dire que cette Pauline n’est pas non plus désenchantée, elle est drôlement bien entourée, ses amitiés sont solides et après trois épisodes visionnés, on sent poindre plusieurs rebondissements à l’horizon.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE
Émilie Bibeau incarne Pauline à l’écran.
Côté distribution, outre Émilie Bibeau (en Pauline, on l’aura deviné), mentionnons Anne-Marie Cadieux, Pierre Curzi, Nathalie Doummar, Vincent Leclerc et Guylaine Tremblay. « Contrairement aux chroniques [présentées à l’émission Plus on est de fous, plus on lit ! sur ICI Première], we’re really coming out of autofiction,” explains the project’s creator, Émilie Bibeau, met last week with part of her pretty team. After the play staged at La Licorne and the book published by Cardinal, “I built a universe, characters, Pauline, who have nothing to do with my life,” she says.
A “balm”
Nevertheless, the spirit remains, in particular this little inner voice which expresses itself here and there through the “words of others”, as she says. “They are a balm. Whether it’s the words of books, of a friend, a song, a radio show, it’s very broad, I wanted to talk about that: how these words fit into our daily lives, much more than it is believed. »
Director Rachel Graton was immediately touched by Pauline’s quirky character. “Its vintage heart side, out of its time,” she emphasizes, “I identify with it 100%!” As a teenager, I listened to Pauline Julien and Gilles Vigneault was my idol! I felt so often missing out! »
If Émilie Bibeau wrote two pilots (with the collaboration of Anouk Mahiout), it was Pascale Renaud-Hébert (Can you hear me ?) that we were entrusted with writing the rest of the series. The latter for her part was rather recognized in the “humor and self-deprecation” of the main character and his “quest for a loving and romantic ideal”. “We all grew up with a lot of references that lead us to believe that we have to meet someone,” she says, “that we have to find the right person. » Often in vain, it should be noted.
If the premise is certainly as old as the world, Fanny Britt sees in Vintage heart a renewed way of appropriating it.
It is this idea of the words of others and multiple accompaniments which gives a new point of view to this story as old as time. It’s hackneyed, but it’s been hackneyed for a long time!
Fanny Britt, screenwriting advisor
She is pleased that the character of Pauline is not a young woman of “22 years old looking for love”. “It doesn’t have the same weight at 40,” she continues. Because it’s not just a quest for love, it’s an observation about his life. And it’s not just a cliché midlife crisis […], she is someone who did not allow herself to go where she wanted, there is also a reflection on work, a reflection on the meaning of existence! »
Parenthesis: extremely rare, here we have a 40-year-old woman without children, in a scenario where motherhood is never mentioned, never even being part of the equation.
” That’s not a statement, continues Émilie Bibeau, but I wanted it to exist that way. » Period. She also considers her series as above all a “unifying” work. “We live in a time where we are all so isolated. […] Vintage heartit is a response to this somewhat abrupt era. […] Because I think we need that: something bright. »
On the ICI Tou.tv Extra