“Midnight in Paris”
Written and Directed by Woody Allen. Story: A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.
Seen by Lars & Adam, May 22, 2011
LARS:
Woody Allen has the most grueling schedule of any filmmaker. He writes, shoots, edits and releases a movie every year. That means that some of them are a bit shoddy and hurried. And when Allen misfires, it can be excruciating to watch. See e.g. the recent “Whatever Works” and “Anything Else”. Or, rather, avoid them at all costs. But when Allen is good, he is a unique voice. From ‘the early funny ones’ to his mid-life ‘I want to be Ingmar Berman’ phase, Allen has created a portfolio of masterpieces that most directors can only dream of. Thankfully, his latest, “Midnight in Paris”, is one of the really good, if not great, ones.
Allen hasn’t dabbled a lot in magic realism. But when he does, he is spectacularly good at realizing a world that obviously doesn’t exist outside the head of the protagonists (or does it?). The closest relative to “Midnight in Paris” in Allen’s oeuvre is “The Purple Rose of Cairo” from 1985, which is set in the 1930’s New Jersey and features a movie character walking off the screen and into real life. In this movie, a character walks off the streets of modern day Paris and into a glorified version of the ‘gay Paris’ of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.
If you’re not at all familiar with the world of literature and art and all the ex-pat Americans hanging out in Paris in the 1930s, I imagine much of this flick could leave you utterly nonplussed. There are in-jokes galore that will completely elude you, unless you know a little something about e.g. Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tumultuous relationship, Hemingway’s macho personality and Picasso’s relationships with his female models. This is a movie unashamedly made for well-read adults, and it’s a pleasure to see Allen put humorous dialogue into the mouths of long dead celebrities and poke gentle fun at their legacies. My particular favorite was Adrien Brody’s gestation of Salvador Dali and his hilarious diatribe about a rhinoceros. A melting rhinoceros, of course. In fact, everything in the movie that takes place inside the 1930’s fantasy version of Paris makes you long for a time that has by now been romanticized out of all proportion. You can tell that Allen would have loved to hang around with these people and this is his way of getting to do so. And giving us, the viewers, the pleasure of doing the same.
The real world that Owen Wilson’s screenwriter with literary ambitions, Gil Pender, inhabits is somewhat less interesting. It’s hard to see what, if anything, has made Wilson’s character get engaged to Rachel McAdams’ shallow and nagging character. So it’s a pleasure whenever she and her parents disappear from the movie and Gil goes back in time. As with any male protagonist in an Allen movie after he got too old to play them himself, Wilson is essentially channeling Allen. Whether it’s the cadences in Allen’s writing, the way he directs his male actors or just how the actors in Allen’s movies think they have to play their characters, I don’t know, but it’s always fun to see different actors figure out how to be stand-ins for Allen. Wilson does a fine job here, almost as good as the one Kenneth Branagh pulled off in “Celebrity”.
The lesson is that every time you’ve written Allen off as ‘over’, he bounces back with a movie as pleasurable to watch as “Midnight in Paris”. At 76 years of age, Allen is still going strong. You should support him by going to see his movies. He is truly a national treasure that doesn’t get the respect that he deserves in the US. In Europe, he is considered an icon of modern cinema. He should be here too.
ADAM:
A new Woody Allen movie is always a must see, though I enjoy them (or not) in varying degrees. Allen’s latest is not his best but not even close to his worst. A beautifully shot love letter to the city of lights, “Midnight in Paris” showcases all that is gorgeous and romantic about Paris and is the perfect backdrop for the bit of magic that envelops the lead character and transports him to a simpler time. And that’s really the name of the game here, simple: an ambivalent Hollywood screenwriter (played by Owen Wilson, as the current incarnation of Woody Allen) is insecure about his new novel. He’s sure he would have flourished in the Paris of the 1920’s where art and creativity were paramount. On a trip to Paris with his shrill, materialistic fiancée, Inez (played by Rachel McAdams) and her family, he stumbles on a sort of portal to the 1920’s Paris of his dreams where he parties and kvetches with his literary heroes of the Lost Generation.
Despite the time travel element, the basic story is a little one-note (and sports a familiar Allen theme of insecurity and discontent). I prefer his broader, early movies like “Bananas” or his more complex and nuanced stories like “Manhattan Murder Mystery” or “Match Point.” And Allen clearly borrows certain elements from himself, most notably from one of his early comedy sketches immortalized on the album “Woody Allen, Comedian” about hanging out with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, and from the “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Still, it’s an enjoyable two hours with some genuinely hilarious moments – especially the characterizations of the 1920’s artists. The interactions with Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and an especially funny scene with Adrien Brody playing Salvador Dali are clever and fun.
I confess, I was skeptical going in mainly because, I’m not a fan of Owen Wilson. He generally seems to play the same guy in every movie – a cockier version of himself, maybe? But he is more tolerable when he plays vulnerable and does a decent job as Gil, the stuttering, hand wringing screenwriter. Ultimately, there is no real substitute for Allen himself. And even though Allen is getting up there in years, I think I still would have preferred seeing him muddle his way through his Paris fantasy, interacting with Hemingway and Dali. On the other hand, I’m not sure Allen could pull off the romantic portion of the adventure. In 1920’s Paris, Gil meets a stunning artist’s muse, Adriana (played by Marion Cottillard). Gil and Adriana bond primarily over their love of an earlier time. In Adriana’s case, she longs for Paris of the early 1900’s, the “Belle époque.” Gil is instantly smitten by the smoldering Adriana and starts questioning his relationship with Inez. And it’s no wonder – Inez and her family are wholly unlikeable. Inez badgers and demeans Gil at every turn; constantly deferring to a know-it-all, smarmy, former college classmate they bump into at a museum. As Gil becomes immersed in the 1920’s, traveling back nightly, his life during the day, in the present, becomes less and less appealing. And it’s no big surprise that he realizes he needs to make some big changes.
With its’ old fashioned sensibilities and “inside” literary and art references, Midnight in Paris stands out as a witty, grown-up film among the superhero movies this summer and let’s face it: for many of us, Woody as filmmaker will always be a superhero.
