French cartoonist Nine Antico takes a swing at directing with her feature debut Playlist, a film she claims is 73% autobiographical. If the claim is true, then Antico surely had a roller coaster ride of emerging adulthood. The film stars Sara Forestier as the exuberant Sophie, a down-on-her-luck waitress turned assistant to a comic book publisher, her dream job. It isn’t long after landing this gig that she finds out she is pregnant. After this revelation, Sophie starts to consider all the men around her as potential mates, seeing the candidates through rose-colored glasses before each one of them almost immediately does something to turn her off.
Though far from the most original story ever put to film, Playlist succeeds on the power of its lead and the peppy style Antico seems to have borrowed from her illustrations. The comparisons to Frances Ha are inevitable but apt, although one should be encouraged to stop and consider how much that film was influenced by the French New Wave style of the 1960s.
The editing style here is undeniably eye-catching, jumping from scenario to scenario with sporadic whimsy but never losing interest in what makes the film’s characters human. The film itself has an indecisive quality to it, much like the indecisive nature of its protagonist. This lack of a through line may render Playlist too rambling for some, but those who buy into Sophie’s intricacies will surely tag along for the enjoyable ride.
The star of this film is without a doubt Antico’s refined visual style. Having begun her career as an illustrator and author of graphic novels, the first-time director has a keen sensibility for how to compose a beautiful frame. When the camera is locked off, everything is perfectly in place. When there is a camera move, it is executed flawlessly. The black and white imagery in Playlist is so fun to look at that it is easy to forgive its meandering plotlines. If you are a media librarian in search of prime examples of good visual storytelling, Nine Antico’s film is the one to show. Recommended for film studies classes looking for modern tributes to the French New Wave movement.
Sophie, 26, just found out she landed that job at a famous Parisian publisher. Her dream? Not exactly: she would rather see her own graphic work printed… When she tells her boyfriend Jean she is pregnant, everything explodes. They break up and she must return to waiting tables like her friend Julia, an aspiring actress. How can one survive in Paris under such conditions?
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Playlist, un film de Nine Antico.