Midnight in Paris
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We know that only 1 out of every 5 Woody Allen films is good these days. But since he makes a movie a year, that means every 5 years there's a winner. And Midnight in Paris is his winner for the first half of the 2010s.
The movie tells the story of a 30-something Hollywood scriptwriter, Gil, who comes with his fiancee to visit her parents, who are in Paris for a week or so. Owen Wilson is perhaps the best ever Woody Allen avatar: good-looking (so that his romance with the gorgeous fiancee, played by Rachel McAdams, is plausible) without being conventionally handsome; and a finely tuned version of the neurotic, stuttering idealist. Gil has an affinity to the traditional Woody Allen protagonist, but the tics are turned down 90% and the charm up 90%.
Rachel McAdams as the fiancee Inez is a harpy, as are her materialistic parents, and it's hard to see why these two are together, aside from Gil's potential for wealth and Inez's rocking body. But her parents are genuinely funny and pitch-perfect for their role ("Cheap is cheap" has already entered our home humor lexicon). And Inez is given a modicum of respectability by the fact that, while Gil is pining for the good old days, her character is living the good new days, going dancing every night while he mopes.
Luckily, the moping doesn't carry on too long (and here's where the spoilers begin). Gil is taken with walking in the rain through Paris, an activity Inez finds ridiculous, and one night at midnight he is lured into a car by a rowdy group of revelers. He finds himself in another time period, surrounded by his literary and artistic heroes. And the movie takes off into a exploration of his ideal world and what it means for himself and his future.
There are touches here of previous Allen films: the fantasy aspect of The Purple Rose of Cairo, the social criticism of Crimes and Misdemeanors, the cast of celebrity cameos (which are utterly great here; brava, Carla Bruni!); and so on. One critic rightly pointed out that these character types--the social climbers, the young man who idolizes Hemingway--feel a little dated. It's funny: we live in a really exciting time culturally, and with YouTube and blogs, people are more than ever creators of their own art, excited about culture now. When I was a teenager is the 1970s, there was a huge sense that we had just missed the 60s, just missed the awesomest decade ever. That's why people my age are sometimes referred to as Generation Jones, because we grew up jonesing for an identity based on something other than feeling cheated. The 70s were followed by the glitzy, obnoxious 80s, and Woody Allen's nostalgia for previous eras was really developed in these two decades in tandem with a sharp sense of the simultaneous cheesiness and pretentiousness of his own time. It was only with Manhattan and Manhattan Murder Mystery (relatively late films) that you feel him embracing the present.
But Midnight in Paris is a fine film. It balances nostalgia with realism. It's funny and well told. And it tells an ever-wonderful story: that of a person getting back in touch with their authentic self. It's full of beautiful shots of Paris and rejects cynicism. And it ends with Gil meeting someone on the street at night and starting to stroll along with them while it gently begins to rain.
I love when films do this, incorporate meaning in purely visual elements. One of my favorite scenes in all of cinema is the ending of Babette's Feast. At the end of this movie, after a rare, magical evening of food and companionship, the spinster sisters in an isolated northern town reflect on the loveliness of the experience and speculate that maybe it won't even snow this year; after they leave the darkened room, the camera remains on the window, where you can see the first flurries coming down.
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The movie tells the story of a 30-something Hollywood scriptwriter, Gil, who comes with his fiancee to visit her parents, who are in Paris for a week or so. Owen Wilson is perhaps the best ever Woody Allen avatar: good-looking (so that his romance with the gorgeous fiancee, played by Rachel McAdams, is plausible) without being conventionally handsome; and a finely tuned version of the neurotic, stuttering idealist. Gil has an affinity to the traditional Woody Allen protagonist, but the tics are turned down 90% and the charm up 90%.
Rachel McAdams as the fiancee Inez is a harpy, as are her materialistic parents, and it's hard to see why these two are together, aside from Gil's potential for wealth and Inez's rocking body. But her parents are genuinely funny and pitch-perfect for their role ("Cheap is cheap" has already entered our home humor lexicon). And Inez is given a modicum of respectability by the fact that, while Gil is pining for the good old days, her character is living the good new days, going dancing every night while he mopes.
Luckily, the moping doesn't carry on too long (and here's where the spoilers begin). Gil is taken with walking in the rain through Paris, an activity Inez finds ridiculous, and one night at midnight he is lured into a car by a rowdy group of revelers. He finds himself in another time period, surrounded by his literary and artistic heroes. And the movie takes off into a exploration of his ideal world and what it means for himself and his future.
There are touches here of previous Allen films: the fantasy aspect of The Purple Rose of Cairo, the social criticism of Crimes and Misdemeanors, the cast of celebrity cameos (which are utterly great here; brava, Carla Bruni!); and so on. One critic rightly pointed out that these character types--the social climbers, the young man who idolizes Hemingway--feel a little dated. It's funny: we live in a really exciting time culturally, and with YouTube and blogs, people are more than ever creators of their own art, excited about culture now. When I was a teenager is the 1970s, there was a huge sense that we had just missed the 60s, just missed the awesomest decade ever. That's why people my age are sometimes referred to as Generation Jones, because we grew up jonesing for an identity based on something other than feeling cheated. The 70s were followed by the glitzy, obnoxious 80s, and Woody Allen's nostalgia for previous eras was really developed in these two decades in tandem with a sharp sense of the simultaneous cheesiness and pretentiousness of his own time. It was only with Manhattan and Manhattan Murder Mystery (relatively late films) that you feel him embracing the present.
But Midnight in Paris is a fine film. It balances nostalgia with realism. It's funny and well told. And it tells an ever-wonderful story: that of a person getting back in touch with their authentic self. It's full of beautiful shots of Paris and rejects cynicism. And it ends with Gil meeting someone on the street at night and starting to stroll along with them while it gently begins to rain.
I love when films do this, incorporate meaning in purely visual elements. One of my favorite scenes in all of cinema is the ending of Babette's Feast. At the end of this movie, after a rare, magical evening of food and companionship, the spinster sisters in an isolated northern town reflect on the loveliness of the experience and speculate that maybe it won't even snow this year; after they leave the darkened room, the camera remains on the window, where you can see the first flurries coming down.
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