Midnight in Paris
Have you been to Paris? Oh, you’ve got to go. Ernest Hemmingway and Scott Fitzgerald are there, as are Pablo Picasso and his beautiful muse Adriana. They show up in your dreams, or hallucinations if you prefer, of a more perfect time in history, when art was more glamorous, romance more celebrated, life more lived. Gertrude Stein might go over your latest manuscript. Salvador Dali, Man Ray and Luis Bunuel might even sit down for a drink with you and blow your fucking mind.
Such is the charmingly zany scenario in Woody Allen’s 41st film, Midnight in Paris. Owen Wilson takes the journey as the Woody-esque protagonist, wisely forgoing Woody’s typical muttering cadence, but holding on to his baffled charm, such as it is. Owen Wilson is an effervescently charismatic presence on the screen, and this role suits him and Allen both.
There is really nothing wrong with this film, and yet, it’s no masterpiece. It’s a neat little idea, executed ably. It looks a bit like television, like many of Allen’s later films. It’s paced that way too. The dialogue is full of pithy banter, but not especially insightful. The ending is a happy one, and isn’t tacked on. It concludes in a genuinely satisfying way, which is what we all want out of life. I very much enjoyed this film as an outing to the cinema with friends. It feels like a movie should feel for, say, a double date: romantic but not erotic, dreamy but not perplexing, intellectual but not challenging, enjoyable but not hedonistic.
This is a good, safe movie. I guess it should come as no surprise, then, that it bears the distinction of being Woody Allen’s most financially successful film ever made. Something about that boggles my mind. It scores a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is ‘universally acclaimed’ on Metacritic. Surely it’s good, but that good? It is considered to be a return to Allen’s old form, thus far surpassing in quality Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Cassandra’s Dream (2008), Match Point (2005), Melinda and Melinda (2004), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Celebrity (1998), Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Everyone Says I Love You (1996). Supposedly, according to aggregate critic sites, his last great film was Bullets Over Broadway (1994). I happen to believe that all the films I’ve just listed are good, some great.
The fact is, everyone speaks of late Woody Allen as generically awful, but really, it is only a four-year period of truly blah films: 2000 - 2004. Sweet and Lowdown (1999) is very good, and Melinda and Melinda (2004) is good. There are other duds peppered in there, but I take exception to the claim that the aforementioned movies are any worse than Midnight in Paris, which is essentially more of the same from Woody: indulgent fantasy set amongst a privileged class, facing tragicomic fates set against jazz music. Sure, this one has a magical Charlie Kaufman-esque twist, but otherwise it plays out like any other late Allen film. As a big fan of many of them, I’m slightly confused as to why this film is suddenly so much better than anything else he’s done. This surely isn’t a return to his classic films (1977 - 1992 as I see it).
Having said all that, I look forward to one day seeing this flick again on video, preferably with a girl that loves Paris.
-
elledanish liked this
-
moviesaremagic posted this
