Playlist (2021)

Directed by: Nine Antico | 84 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Sara Forestier, Laetitia Dosch, Bertrand Belin, Pierre Lottin, Inas Chanti, Andranic Manet, Lescop, Jackie Berroyer, Grégoire Colin, Marc Fraize, Julien Desjardins, Vladimir Golicheff, Anne Steffens, Cyril Pedrosa

From the world of comics, not only colorful characters with otherworldly powers come to the big screen. There is also room for a cross-pollination between film and visual story in which the woman across the street in her late twenties plays the leading role. She still works at the local bar and actually wants to become a professional comics artist. That’s exactly what ‘Playlist’ is about and therefore it looks suspiciously like a semi-autobiographical account of the director Nine Antico.

The urban problems of her late twenties Sophie (Sara Forestier) in ‘Playlist’ are recognizable for every millennial, from countless crushes on people, a few failed relationships to not really knowing what you really want with life. However, the film never pulls too hard on this kind of drama, which makes ‘Playlist’ mainly feel like a pleasant summer breeze. The music, mostly eighties and nineties underground music, the cheerful cinematography and the wry humor certainly help. The laughter often comes from socially awkward situations, such as her near-desperate attempts to get her work published.

Yet ‘Playlist’ does not completely ridicule the drama in Sophie’s life. It’s especially painful to watch Sophie struggle with her passion while being seen as overdue by the outside world. Like, do you have yet to start a career as a cartoonist? Shouldn’t you have already had an art academy bachelor and master in your name? ‘Playlist’ shows this small suffering with panache, too young to give up on your dream, but perhaps too old to start.

‘Playlist’ can be classified under the almost typical millennial production: the worrying young person, often also unhappy in love. This category has been popular in the art house circuit for more than ten years now. Recently another millennial production was shown in Dutch cinemas, ‘La virgen de Agosto’ (Jonás Trueba, 2919). Here too, ‘une jeune femme’, Eva, flutters through life, while in between she juggles the big questions of life. In style and content, ‘Playlist’ also resembles ‘Frances Ha’ (Greta Gerwig, 2012). Both are stylishly shot in black and white and are about wandering late twenties with an unfulfilled artistic wish.

There are also some less noticeable things. The emotional catharsis is handled rather dryly. The film is mainly about recognizing Sophie’s problems and about the small steps she makes in her personal development. Realistic, but does the viewer really want to continue with this open ending? Should the film have a sequel in the form of a TV series, for example? Then you quickly end up in ‘Girls’ (Lena Dunham, 2012-2017) territory and it is already quite busy there. In addition, the use of a male actor as a narrator (the French musician, Bertrand Belin) conflicts with the current cultural landscape. The narrator muses on some semi-philosophical generalities about love in relation to Sophie’s tribulations, but just as quickly downplays her ‘little problems’.

Ultimately, ‘Playlist’ manages to maintain the balance between light entertainment and seriousness enough for a pleasant sitting. The question is perhaps not so much whether the story stays with you for a long time, but rather whether the viewer joins in with the lively Sophie. Life has to be lived first and foremost, otherwise those so-called big questions won’t even cross your path anyway.