Okay, it's official; Woody Allen is some kinda genius. His Midnight in Paris, is part fairy tale, part fantasy, part history lesson, part time travel, and part love story. Even with all these elements - this movie is not for everyone. Although the story is easy enough for any audience to comprehend, the magic of this film lies in the actors and their portrayal of their characters (and how familiar the audience will be of those characters).
Writers, Artists, World-Travellers, History Buffs...in other words, this is a film for the Geek/Cultural/Artsy-types.
The film stars Gil (Owen Wilson), on a trip in Paris with his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil is a screenwriter, and like many writers, he has a pantheon of iconic writers he loves and admires. He wishes he were back in a time where the Arts was taken more seriously (before the time of e-readers and short-attention spans). He hopes that Paris will be his muse, as he dreams of someday penning the Great American Novel. Inez just wants to visit a nice cafe and down a few choice croissants.
As you can imagine, these two dreams are far apart, and soon, Gil is off at night admiring the atmosphere of the Paris he dreams of, and Inez is off shopping with her friends who just happen to be in Paris: Carol (Nina Arianda), and Paul (Michael Sheen), an insufferable know-it-all about all things Parisian; but really doesn't know anything at all. Inez is enthralled with Paul, and they thirst for present Paris nightlife, while Gil is enthralled with it's past.
One night, while Inez & Company go dancing, he decides to troll Paris, and while sitting on a set of church steps, a bell tolls midnight, and an old-age car pulls up filled with passengers, who invite Gil to join them. At a bar, noticing it's very vintage style, and patrons who call themselves: Zelda, F.Scott Fitzgerald - who take him to see Ernest Hemingway - he realizes he has been transported back in time to Paris' heyday in the 1920's. There, he talks of his manuscript, and Hemingway promises to show it to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to read it (all while Josephine Baker is putting on a show). OMG! So he rushes back to retrieve his manuscript - but time has shifted back.
I wont give much away than that. But because of the performance, I must say, in another visit, he does meet the mistress of Pablo Picasso, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), who captures his heart in her time, but her thoughts (just as his) are of an earlier, simpler Paris. This mishmash of characters, situations and twists in history, reminds me very much of the film Shakespeare in Love (one of my favorite). In a film where time travel is incorporated, there is usually dense melodrama, or high-pitched action - this one sort of lies in-between.
A lot of the jokes went by me, because many of the characters speak as they write, or many are known through their histories and the struggles they may have had in being a writer or artist at the time. So there were small bursts of laughter in the audience at some times, and a roar of everyone at others.
Gil (Owens), is at once charming, and although I don't claim to be a fan of many of his movies (or his acting as well), here he is very good. This character is very much him. He makes Gil seem tired of his world and his circumstances, but we feel he doesn't hate them, he just dreams of something else. He makes the most out of his life whether it is in the NOW or in the PAST. Adriana (Marion), well I am a fan of hers - and here she too plays a smart woman (just as Josephine), in a time where women were not only beautiful but talented. A world where you were known by what you did, not the gender/color you were born into. She handles her and Gil's relationship with tact, despite the underlying attraction they have. Their union is built upon childlike innocence. And Gertrude (Kathy) attacks her role with panache and bite. This is were many of the creative minds of Paris gather and converse (The cast ensemble is too vast to name). She is another smart woman who KNOWS she is, as if she were the madame of an artistic geisha house.
Midnight in Paris has appeal and grace, like a good ballet. The laughs are soft, and the pacing very smooth. It ends as it should...and also how you will feel.
Good.
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