Movie Rec: "Midnight in Paris"
Monday, August 15th, 2011 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoWhat a pleasure to see a movie and walk out of the theater feeling so *good* about everything: good about the movie, good about the actors, good about the city, good about LIFE as a whole. "Midnight in Paris" is a delightful film, with an excellent cast that's a love letter to Paris (the city) and the little revelations you have on a daily basis about life and its tribulations and victories.
Plotwise: Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a screenwriter who yearns to become a serious novelist instead of a Hollywood screenwriting hack and who is visiting Paris with his grouchy fiancee (a thankless role for the gorgeous Rachel MacAdams: "You always take the side of the help. That's why Daddy says you're a Communist.") and her rich Republican parents. In an effort to escape from the pretentious speechifying of an annoying friend, Gil wanders the streets of Paris at night, and finds a pathway back in time to Paris in the '20s, where he meets his literary and artistic idols like Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein, and falls in love with the gorgeous Adriana, who's having an affair with Pablo Picasso. Of course, as wonderful as all this time traveling is, Gil can't keep avoiding the real world and has to make a decision where and when he'd rather be (and who he'd rather be with.)
The casting in this was just superb. It amuses me that Michael Sheen is getting introduced to American audiences as 'that guy who annoys beloved characters' (in this movie, his vocal role on the latest season of Doctor Who and his stint on 30 Rock as Wesley Snipes). But beyond that, the historical figures all *looked* and acted like themselves (although I wonder if Gertrude Stein was a little more severe than Kathy Bates played her.) In particular, Adrien Brody was excellent as a young Salvador Dali and Corey Stoll's appearance as Earnest Hemingway was so good that I started to wonder if I need to get over my high school prejudice of his literary work. It should be said, though, that the real star of this movie was the city of Paris itself, and I wished fervently that I could visit it. The opening montage is the most loving set of photographs of a place I've ever seen, and even though it went on a little too long, it set the pace and tone very well. Paris, this movie wants to say, is the most beautiful place on Earth, and its beauty is magical, in the best sense of the word.
But the best thing about this film was how happy I felt about it afterwards. Not only because some of the plotlines were resolved the way I wanted them to be, but also because the overall message of the movie was so inherently optimistic without being forced. It's a preposterous story in many respects, but the way the movie treats its characters makes it feel like the most natural thing in the world. And Gil's final decision makes perfect and total sense, based on his character and what we know about him. I hate to say it, but I think I would have done the same thing he did, and I rather envy him the chance he ends up with.
In general, I'd have to say that this has displaced "Take the Money and Run" as my favorite Woody Allen film. Even with TtMaR, I was up for seeing it about once every three years or so. Most of Allen's films are so talky that I want to cry at the sheer amount of chatter and the mental effort necessary to concentrate on the overly complicated relationships between the characters. But "Midnight in Paris" didn't feel overly complicated or too bloated with pretentious dialogue. Owen Wilson's delivery of some of the lines really helped in this respect, I'm sure. But the script, in general, was more balanced than Allen's previous movies, and it worked really well.
(All this said, nothing ever fails to make me laugh like the part in TtMaR where the bank tellers are reading his robbery note aloud: "'Give me all the money. I have a gub.' What's a gub?")
Plotwise: Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a screenwriter who yearns to become a serious novelist instead of a Hollywood screenwriting hack and who is visiting Paris with his grouchy fiancee (a thankless role for the gorgeous Rachel MacAdams: "You always take the side of the help. That's why Daddy says you're a Communist.") and her rich Republican parents. In an effort to escape from the pretentious speechifying of an annoying friend, Gil wanders the streets of Paris at night, and finds a pathway back in time to Paris in the '20s, where he meets his literary and artistic idols like Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein, and falls in love with the gorgeous Adriana, who's having an affair with Pablo Picasso. Of course, as wonderful as all this time traveling is, Gil can't keep avoiding the real world and has to make a decision where and when he'd rather be (and who he'd rather be with.)
The casting in this was just superb. It amuses me that Michael Sheen is getting introduced to American audiences as 'that guy who annoys beloved characters' (in this movie, his vocal role on the latest season of Doctor Who and his stint on 30 Rock as Wesley Snipes). But beyond that, the historical figures all *looked* and acted like themselves (although I wonder if Gertrude Stein was a little more severe than Kathy Bates played her.) In particular, Adrien Brody was excellent as a young Salvador Dali and Corey Stoll's appearance as Earnest Hemingway was so good that I started to wonder if I need to get over my high school prejudice of his literary work. It should be said, though, that the real star of this movie was the city of Paris itself, and I wished fervently that I could visit it. The opening montage is the most loving set of photographs of a place I've ever seen, and even though it went on a little too long, it set the pace and tone very well. Paris, this movie wants to say, is the most beautiful place on Earth, and its beauty is magical, in the best sense of the word.
But the best thing about this film was how happy I felt about it afterwards. Not only because some of the plotlines were resolved the way I wanted them to be, but also because the overall message of the movie was so inherently optimistic without being forced. It's a preposterous story in many respects, but the way the movie treats its characters makes it feel like the most natural thing in the world. And Gil's final decision makes perfect and total sense, based on his character and what we know about him. I hate to say it, but I think I would have done the same thing he did, and I rather envy him the chance he ends up with.
In general, I'd have to say that this has displaced "Take the Money and Run" as my favorite Woody Allen film. Even with TtMaR, I was up for seeing it about once every three years or so. Most of Allen's films are so talky that I want to cry at the sheer amount of chatter and the mental effort necessary to concentrate on the overly complicated relationships between the characters. But "Midnight in Paris" didn't feel overly complicated or too bloated with pretentious dialogue. Owen Wilson's delivery of some of the lines really helped in this respect, I'm sure. But the script, in general, was more balanced than Allen's previous movies, and it worked really well.
(All this said, nothing ever fails to make me laugh like the part in TtMaR where the bank tellers are reading his robbery note aloud: "'Give me all the money. I have a gub.' What's a gub?")
