After the chronicles, the play, then the book, here is now the series. Vintage heart, an 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.
She has just been dumped, works in an anti-cellulite clinic and searches for meaning in all her misfortunes by drawing from all directions, quoting Madame Bovary, The Four Daughters of Doctor March, why not Louis-Ferdinand Céline, or… Celine (Dion) in short.
It gives you an idea of the tone, as rich as it is absurd, as witty as it is down-to-earth, with a good dose of self-deprecation. It must be said that this Pauline is not disenchanted either, she is incredibly well surrounded, her friendships are solid and after three episodes watched, we sense several twists and turns on the horizon.
On the distribution side, in addition to Émilie Bibeau (as Pauline, we guessed it), let us mention Anne-Marie Cadieux, Pierre Curzi, Nathalie Doummar, Vincent Leclerc and Guylaine Tremblay. “Contrary to the columns [presented on the show The more the merrier, the more we read! on ICI Première], we’re really coming out of autofiction”, specifies the idea behind the project, 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.
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 are intertwined in our daily lives, much more than it is believed. »
Director Rachel Graton was immediately touched by the quirky character of Pauline. “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 like I was missing out so often! »
If Émilie Bibeau wrote two pilots (with the collaboration of Anouk Mahiout), it was to Pascale Renaud-Hébert (M’ils-tu-tu?) that we entrusted the writing of the rest of the series. The latter, for her part, recognized herself more in the “humor and self-deprecation” of the main character and her “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 time, Fanny Britt sees in Cœur vintage a renewed way of making it our own.
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 one’s life. And it’s not just a clichéd midlife crisis […], it’s someone who hasn’t allowed herself to go where she wanted, there’s also a reflection on work, a reflection about 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.
“It’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 heart, it’s a response to this somewhat abrupt era. […] Because I think we need that: something bright. »