Review 148: Midnight in Paris
Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful but creatively unfulfilled Hollywood screenwriter who while on vacation in Paris with his materialist fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams), takes to touring the city alone. On one such late-night excursion, Gil encounters a group of strange - yet familiar - revellers, who sweep him along, apparently back in time to the 1920's, for a night with some of the Jazz Age's icons of art and literature. The more time Gil spends with these cultural heroes of the past the more dissatisfied he becomes with the present and is forced to confront the shortcomings of his relationship with Inez and their divergent goals.
The plot is a wonderfully and a testament to Woody Allen's talents and imagination, not just as a writer but also as a storyteller.
At its core, Midnight in Paris is very much a film about nostalgia and modernism.
Nostalgia: Gil is bored with his life in the 2010's in general and is deep down unhappy with his relationship with Inez and wishes to live in the 1920's which he considers the best age.
Eventually, he realises that nostalgia is just a mere feeling and does not change through the ages and that the only way to deal with the present is to actually live in it, wether it's boring or dull.
Modernism:
Woody Allen's direction is sensitive and precise, the cinematography is simply gorgeous and captures the beauty of 2010's and 1920's Paris, giving each time period a distinct and different look.
The production design (recreating Paris in the 20's) is splendid and beautifully detailed. Allen's vision of 1920's Paris is very much a dreamlike, idyllic, fantasy world that Gil uses to escape the doldrums of 21st Century life as well as the era he would ideally like to live in.
The music is just fabulous, like many of his other films, Allen makes terrific use of classical music to help enhance the experience and draw us further into the world the characters. The costumes are lavish
Owen Wilson Gil is kind of caught in the past. He feels that things were better in the 1920's
He's an everyman in a very surrealist and unique situation. He comes to Paris and finds himself overwhelmed by its spirit and longing for the Golden Age
Rachel McAdams' Inez is one overbearing, obnoxious character The main reason their relationship is so rocky is because she and Gil and presented as complete contrasts to one another.
Gil is very much interested in classic literature and appreciating the architecture of Paris and timeless feel whereas Inez is materialistic, shallow and would prefer to bask in the present and move to Malibu as opposed to appreciating Paris and its history and culture which is Gil's idea of heaven and where he wants to move.
She dismisses his ambition as a romantic daydream
In any lesser hands, this role would have been shockingly and depressingly one note.
Michael Sheen plays a very similar character archetype the playing Paul Bates an old friend of Inez who bumps into them in Paris. Over the course of the film, Paul acts as a simply brilliant foil for Gil. He's very opinionated, very sure of himself, very knowledgeable about various topics and is not afraid to show it which contrasts beautifully with Gil's more reserved and conservative
Marion Cotillard
Tom Hiddleston (fresh off of Thor) is F. Scott Fitzgerald
Adrian Brody playing Salvador Dali,
Corey Stoll playing Ernest Hemingway
Kathy Bates playing Gertrude Stein
5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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