Movie Review: Midnight in Paris
At the stroke of midnight on a mysterious cobbled corner of Paris, self-described “Hollywood hack” screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson) enters a phantom carriage in the form of a vintage 1920s automobile. Inside he meets a couple of nightlifers with a flair for words and a curiously old-fashioned sartorial style. Their names are Scott and Zelda and they invite Gil to join them. By the end of his tale, Gil will have hobknobbed with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Luis Buñuel, Gertrude Stein, and numerous other luminaries of art and literature. As in his earlier The Purple Rose of Cairo (1984) and Alice (1990), writer/director Woody Allen again indulges his flair for romantic fantasy in the inviting and charming Midnight in Paris. At this point, one knows what to expect thematically and philosophically from an Allen film, though he has been refreshed in his recent years away from New York – his most successful works have arguably been Match Point (2005, made in London) and Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008, in Spain). His rhythms and voice never change, but the new locales have invigorated the familiarity with a playful, exploratory quality.
Paris is the most ideal location yet to feed Allen’s artistic nostalgia, the city is the first character we meet in a stunning dialogue-free overture that shows the “City of Lights” over the course of a full day. Seemingly influenced by Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) and D.A. Pennebaker’s New York ode Daybreak Express cinematographers Darius Khondji and Johanne Debas provide their director with a cinematic pallete that is beautiful but unfussy.
On holiday in this magical locale, Gil and his flighty fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are living the usual Woody Allen posh life which gives Gil the luxury to be nostalgic for the lives of the Bohemian denizens of 1920s Paris even though he is a man lacking in the lust for life which fuelled their artistic revelry (though he is writing the elusive novel that is a pre-requisite for any Allen hero). At least Woody appears to be giving in to a session of critical self-analysis – a well-documented curmudgeon stuck on the obsessions of his youth who has reflected those passions in his music and dialogue choices in forty-plus years of filmmaking. Standing in as the mouthpiece this time, Owen Wilson is a surprising fit, playing the character with naiveté and aw-shucks humbleness. It is often distracting in Allen’s pictures when characters throw around archaic references in place of strong jokes and sit back to enjoy the satisfied recognition from an audience of NPR listeners, but Wilson sells the dialogue by under-emphasizing the smarty-pants stuff.
Where the story falters is in the present-day subplots centered around Inez’s right-wing parents (cloyingly played by Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy) – characters clearly tagging along on the trip only to be the butt of Allen’s obvious, toothless political jibes – and the attraction Inez develops for a blowhard professor (Michael Sheen) whom Gil gets to one-up in the art history department with a little help from his new friends. Inez is another in a long line of vain, shrewish modern American women painted with Allen’s broad strokes. Too grumpy and out-of-touch to create meaningful satire, he is best when pointing out small human foibles and less-so when directly picking on people.
While McAdams gets short shrift, Marion Cottilard is the film’s greatest asset as Picasso’s muse and mistress Adriana, a wide-eyed “art groupie” attracted to Gil’s mopey lack of fire (maybe you would be too if you had to deal with Picasso). She longs to be back in the “Belle Epoque” era of French culture because, as Gil finds out, everyone thinks that there is some fabled “Golden Age” and if only they could return to it all of their problems would be solved. In a world where political chatter is defined by similar idealization, what is on the surface a verdant romantic comedy, Midnight in Paris lays a pointed comment on our poetic licensing of the past and the maturity of finding the romance in our present.
Gregory Fichter
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