“MIDNIGHT IN PARIS”
Written and Directed by Woody Allen
**** (four stars)
From time to time throughout my life, I have held the peculiar feeling that I was perhaps born late.
As a child, especially during my pre-teen and teenage years, I possessed a large obsession with the 1960s as the attitudes of the music, counter-culture movement, peace rallies, clashes with authority, hippies, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war and near mythical locations and events like Woodstock vibrantly spiraled and danced through my consciousness, speaking loudly to my spirit. While the full gravity of those tumultuous times did not completely register during that age, there was some inexplicable force from that specific time period that revealed itself to me as something of grand personal significance. It just felt to be a time that was personally designed for my growing worldview.
As I grew a little older, my fascination with the past began to mostly veer towards areas relegated to popular culture and the arts. I remember short tales delivered to me by my parents about how they had seen the original production of “Hair” on stage or when they saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) and were simultaneously perplexed and mesmerized. And I am sill graced with stories from my Father’s youth in Chicago, as he witnessed many jazz greats in close proximity, either in the clubs or directly outside music hall windows.
Through all of those stories, my mind raced with the curiosity in wondering what it would have been like to listen to The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” or Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” or any other landmark album that pushed the medium of music forward during the times they were originally released. I wondered what it would have been like to see a film like Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1972) for instance, at a time when films of that sort were unheard of. I would loved to have read my favorite novel, John Irving’s The World According To Garp, when it was first published and have had the opportunity to witness its cultural impact first hand. And as I sit from time to time in the café of a certain national chain bookstore with its enlarged mural of legendary writers seated together for drinks and nourishment, I am blissfully lost in literary fantasy.
In the world of the arts, there is a profoundly deep romanticism I hold onto tightly and that specific romanticism sits at the delightfully sumptuous core of Writer/Director Woody Allen’s latest effort “Midnight In Paris.” For a filmmaker as prolific as Allen, who at the age of 75 still releases a new film nearly every year, it is more than a little easy to take his talents for granted. It is also more than a little easy for film critics to either over-praise or over-criticize new works or to even continuously (and unfairly) hold each new film in relation to the still looming shadows of Allen’s past classics instead of meeting each film as they arrive on their own terms. For me, and frankly for all of us, Woody Allen is a filmmaker to endlessly treasure and the wistful, poetic and yes, very funny “Midnight In Paris,” (his 41st film!) is a high point. Once again, Allen’s days away from his beloved New York have rejuvenated his cinematic gifts handsomely. Not only is it easily his best film since the absolutely wonderful “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008), it is yet another movie I have seen this year of such high quality that it has become another favorite of 2011.
Echoing the George Gershwin scored opening to Woody Allen’s jewel “Manhattan” (1979), “Midnight In Paris” opens with a gloriously sublime and wordless montage that depicts life in Paris from day to night, from sunshine to rain back to sunlight and finally, stunningly, starlight.
Afterwards, we are introduced to affable yet frustrated writer Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a successful yet self-described “Hollywood hack” screenwriter who is struggling with composing his first novel. Arriving in Paris with his dismissively belligerent fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her wealthy, ultra-conservative and snobbish parents (Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy) as part of a family business trip, Gil renews his love with the “City Of Lights,” a place he once visited years earlier. As Gil is anxious for languid strolls around Paris in the midst of the Parisian rain, he spends copious amounts of time contemplating the lives of his favorite writers, musicians and artists during the 1920s, as illustrated in Ernest Hemingway’s classic memoir A Movable Feast.
Unfortunately, Gil is forced to wile away his hours tagging along with Inez’s family and even worse, Inez’s close friend, the insufferable pseudo-intellectual Paul Bates (played to hysterically irritating perfection by Michael Sheen) and his wife Carol (Nina Arianda).
On one fateful evening, after declining a late night invitation of dancing with Inez, Paul and Carol, a happily tipsy Gil begins to wander the streets of Paris, soon discovering himself to be lost. Seating himself upon a set of stairs, he listens to chimes striking the hour of midnight and suddenly, an unusual vintage automobile arrives with a band of friendly strangers ecstatically inviting Gil to join them. Gil obliges, enters the car and then…
…I would not even attempt to tell you what happens next!
As with several other films that I have had the pleasure of viewing this year, it is just a treat to see films that defy being explained away in one sentence and beyond that, offer absolutely no sense of tired predictability. The opening sequences and the remainder of “Midnight In Paris” are nothing less than supremely enchanting as it finds Woody Allen in a more whimsical mode. Thankfully, Allen remains so fully in command of his gifts that any sense of whimsy never becomes cloying or sacrifices even one ounce of his peerless literary wit. This is a film of tremendous warmth and affection, qualities that richly enhance the humor, the characters and their respective relationships with each other and themselves.
Thematically and visually, “Midnight In Paris” functions as just as much of a love letter to Paris as “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” celebrated Spain. The movie is stunningly photographed with lush, invitingly warm colors (like those beautiful Central park in autumn sequences of Allen’s 1994 film “Bullets Over Broadway”) that are nothing less than seductive. Often it felt as if the world of Paris was reaching through the screen, gently beckoning you to take an even closer look and perhaps even stay past the ending credits. Perhaps travel agents should be stationed directly outside of the movie theater because if this film does not inspire travel, I have no idea what else could!
As with all of Allen’s films, the writing, direction and performances from the entire cast are priceless. Without going into any specifics of their respective characters, appearances from the likes of Kathy Bates, Adrian Brody, Alison Pill, Corey Stoll and the sultry and beguiling Marianne Cotillard shine wondrously and add tremendously to the film’s overall frisky enchantment.
Sometimes the unlikeliest pairings are able to create cinematic alchemy and Owen Wilson, an actor I love yet never thought that I would find in a Woody Allen film, is surprisingly perfect and poignant in the leading role and Allen surrogate. Wilson is so engaging as Gil and his enthusiasm for Paris, for writing, for the arts and his overall romantic spirit was one I could relate to completely, making this character a true kindred spirit. Wilson’s gentle scruffiness, playful sincerity and earnestness made him completely engaging and I loved having him as my tour guide for this Parisian odyssey so much that I would have gladly followed him anywhere.
As previously stated, “Midnight In Paris” is a poetic experience but as with Allen’s oeuvre, it is also a philosophical journey. I greatly appreciated how Allen was able to weave and re-visit some of his slightly darker themes last seen in his underrated previous film, “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger” (2010).
“Midnight In Paris” while joyously light as a feather, is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of nostalgia and living a life of illusion. Gil Pender is a man lost within the haze of romanticism and nostalgia for a time he never existed in and he does indeed tread the line between carrying unrealistic and fantastical impressions of a very real time period while neglecting and forsaking the life and world in front of his eyes. Allen is a tad critical of Gil just as we are also meant to embrace the Paris of his dreams with him. Again, I could completely relate to Gil’s wanderlust as I have been an Anglophile for so much of my life and still dream of one day, flying to England and walking the streets and seeing the landscapes that populated the lives of so many of my artistic heroes, especially The Beatles. Over time and even through this film, I have learned that my love and bottomless fascination with all things British is indeed based in a romance of England and definitely not the reality of England. It is a romance that is steeped in the writers, musicians, comedians, filmmakers and artists that I have adored since my childhood and this sort of a romance, while containing more than its fair share of unrealistic expectations is still euphorically, a romance.
“Midnight In Paris,” regardless of any right or wrong implications or expectations, proclaims that this very romance is worth rejoicing as a love of the arts and the people and places from where it originates can only sustain and adorn one’s life and soul tremendously. And for that, I have to say emphatically, that “Midnight In Paris” is a film that can definitely be described as a “feel good movie.” Yes, that is an abhorrent cliché and term, which makes me gag profusely, but Woody Allen has written and helmed an experience that made me feel so undeniably good. “Midnight In Paris” lifted my spirit completely. It not only filled my cinematic heart and my former English major heart, it made me smile from the very first shot and its good nature held me within its grasp until the final fadeout. If I were able, I would have wrapped my arms around it for I loved this film that much.
For Woody Allen, notoriously nihilistic, prickly and fatalistic, he has indeed produced a film that contains an open-hearted sense of wonder. “Midnight In Paris” shows that there are still things in our precarious world that can still surprise, inspire and captivate us. It speaks to the elegant mystery of the things that can only occur under the moonlit sky and it celebrates the very kinds of conversations that only occur deep in the wee hours of the night, much like Writer/Director Richard Linklater’s astoundingly romantic and verbose “Before Sunrise” (1995).
“Midnight In Paris” is a very funny, gently rapturous film that contains delicate splendor and transcendent timelessness and I urge you to seek out this film and purchase a ticket…and just in case, you may want to have a passport at the ready.
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