Adele - “Someone Like You”

  We start out with the camera rolling backwards on a sidewalk in what is most likely Paris, with the lovely River Seine on the right. It’s all black-and-white and artsy, as the intro piano-work is playing, so you know we aren’t going to have any line dances in this one. Eventually we catch up with Adele, her long hair blowing in the sad breeze, her eyes cast downward because people have made her unhappy once again and she needs to sing about it.

  So she does, breaking into the haunting vocals as she strolls along. (Vocals which, funning aside for the moment, get me every time.) Adele keeps glancing off to the side, and it’s not clear if she’s looking at the director or if she’s just trying to keep from falling in the river. The camera pulls back some more, so we can see that someone has picked out a very interesting outfit for Adele, brooding but smart. There are zippers in odd places, and I find this very fetching.

  Adele and her outfit walk for a very long time, with the river quietly accompanying her and absolutely no other people in sight, so there must have been a wine and cheese festival in Bordeaux this same weekend. Then again, Adele is notoriously afraid of performing live, so she may have asked the mayor to lock everyone in their houses until she got to the end of the song. There are amazing things you can arrange when you have money.

  The camera zooms back in when Adele is belting the chorus, so we can see in her eyes that she’s still not happy with whoever done her wrong, despite warbling lyrics about how she’s moved on and we’re all good friends now. I’m thinking you probably don’t want to get on Adele’s bad side, especially if she’s had a shot or two of tequila. Then the moment passes and the camera starts spinning around to show that Adele has managed to wander into a nice square where you can see lots of local landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and little bistros where people would be sipping café au lait if anybody was actually in town.

  The camera finds Adele again as she’s marching away from us across a bridge that is probably older than most countries. She might be upset with us for getting all touristy and distracted, but she doesn’t explain anything and just makes us walk behind her for a while. (There aren’t any zippers on the back of her outfit, so I’m a little disappointed, but the angle does kind of remind me of Wynona Judd, only without the extra relative that doesn’t sing as well.)

  Adele pauses in the middle of the bridge to review some boats on the river, managing to continue singing without moving her lips, so she has even more talent than we suspected. She does this for a bit, then she and her lips start moving again along the bridge. The camera’s in front of her once more, and Adele gives us some more of those piercing glances to remind us that she hasn’t completely forgiven us for doing whatever we did to make her write a song about it and move to Paris.

  This is apparently a very long bridge, because girl trudges along for a couple of hours, all the time bellowing about heartbreak and redemption and not getting hit by the tiny little cars that would normally be zipping over this bridge if that cheese festival hadn’t been happening. At one point, the camera starts to drift away again, but Adele forces it back on her windswept tragedy and paleness.

  Then we switch to a close-up of Adele’s eyes, with this image overlaid on more scenes of the famous landmarks. (This is probably the part of the video intended to satisfy the European audiences, because Americans are uncomfortable with symbolism and the lack of explosions in their entertainment.) This is followed by Adele staring blankly in one direction while a man walks away behind her. Wait, who is he? Is he the one that made her cry?

  Guess we won’t find out. The camera does another arty 360-degree pan of our unclear and murky surroundings (Are we in a restaurant? Is that a wine bottle? Why would someone leave food in the window? How much are we supposed to tip?) until we get back to the mysterious walking-away man. Then we spin again, in case we missed something on the first tour.

  The camera finally comes to rest on Adele once more, with her still blankly staring and her departed lover still departing. Maybe it’s time for that shot of tequila…


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