New York (AFP)

Love stories of all kinds, here is the material of "Modern Love", weekly column of the New York Times become cult and now Amazon series, collection of romantic pastilles counter current of the current television.

"She dumped me": "She dumped me". It was the title of the first chronicle of "Modern Love", in October 2004. Since then, nearly 800 stories, centered on two beings who are not always in a couple, have followed in the Sunday edition of New York Times.

The launch of a podcast in 2016 has further increased the popularity of these short stories, written by those who have lived history, to the point that Daniel Jones, in charge of this section, said to receive between 8,000 and 9,000 tests each year , for 52 published in the end.

Today, "Modern Love" becomes series, for the platform Amazon Prime, new example of the diversification of the New York Times, after the hit podcast "The Daily" and its televised counterpart, "The Weekly".

Obviously, romanticism has been in the spotlight of "Modern Love" Amazon version, both in the selection of eight stories adapted in episodes put online from Friday, as in the choice of the Irish director John Carney, solid reference of "feel good movie" ("Sing Street").

"Some + Modern Love + are very black and they did not want to take the very dark ones," says Daniel Jones.

Despite the complexity of certain topics, such as bipolar disorder, death of the spouse, adoption by a homosexual couple, a ray of sunshine passes through these eight vignettes of half an hour or so.

Everything is filmed in an idyllic New York, with spacious apartments, public gardens galore, restaurants and cafes intimate, where many leading actors, from Anne Hathaway to Tina Fey, Dev Patel or Catherine Keener.

- "Refreshing" -

Since the advent of the golden age of series, US cable channels and even more streaming platforms have given a general tone quite black and sarcastic to their series, which probably corresponds to the time.

Even comedies, like "Fleabag", "Veep" or "The Office" are corrosive, and thus stand out from the canons of traditional television, historically smoother.

"Modern Love" seems resolutely to take the opposite, even to divert.

"Many of us, the first of us, tend to protect ourselves, because today we receive a lot of things that surprise us by their unpleasant side," actress Anne Hathaway told a roundtable , who plays a bipolar young woman in an episode.

"It's nice to have a place where you do not need to protect yourself," she added, while presenting the show as "a pretty little anthology, not the recipe to save the day." humanity".

"I hope that when people watch, they will do it with an open heart, because it can not hurt," says Cristin Milioti, who plays a woman haunted by her caretaker.

"Sometimes people approach things by asking themselves: is it deep enough?" Says Gary Carr, who replies to Anne Hathaway. "But sometimes, we need a loophole, something refreshing."

"Romanticism is a pretty funny thing," says Anne Hathaway, "because some people are allergic to it while others are comfortable with it and take it for what it is."

However, "Modern Love" remains in its time with its open distribution to diversity and its ability to address, even gently, some major issues of society.

"I'm a gay black man and I feel like I've seen the same kind of story forever," says Brandon Kyle Goodman, whose episode refers to a homosexual couple who wants to adopt the child of a homeless woman. "This series and this episode are exciting because it's a different vision."

© 2019 AFP