Secondhand Reviews: "Midnight In Paris"

Rated PG-13 for a little strong language and some mildly suggestive sexual situations.

* * * * * * * * * *

For decades, Woody Allen gave us stories about his native New York that brimmed with nostalgia for the golden age of New York's past, when things were just so much more magical. Then he set a couple of movies in London and seemed to have similar feelings about that legendary British city. And now with his new Paris-set "Midnight In Paris", we take a literal trip back in time from the present to a day when things in France were just a bit more special... or do we really? That's kind of the trick, and the thing that makes this movie just a little bit different, in spite of the obvious surface similarities.

This is the story of Gil (Owen Wilson), a frustrated screenwriter who feels that he's been wasting his time writing unfulfilling screenplays. While on a vacation trip to Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams), he goes on a midnight stroll one night on his own and finds himself literally back in time in the Paris of the 1920's. Gil begins to think that this is really where he belongs... especially after he begins falling in love with the mistress of Pablo Picasso, and when Gertrude Stein begins offering helpful criticism of the first draft of the novel he's been working on. But can he really abandon Inez and everything in the present?

"Midnight In Paris" is by no means a perfect movie. In many ways it gives us the same Woody Allen we've seen so many times before, even down to the same type font in the credits, the same 20's jazzy music over those credits, an opening series of shots of the beauty of Paris that looks like an alternate version of the opening of "Manhattan". And the portrait of the women in this film leaves something to be desired: it seems like the only women who make any impression here are Inez the fiancee (a role that wastes the highly talented McAdams as a stereotypical screeching harpy who doesn't want her man to have any fun doing anything that she isn't passionate about), or Picasso's mistress, portrayed as your typical manic pixie dream girl. True, there is Kathy Bates doing a fine job as Gertrude Stein, but she's not much more than a background figure.

Still, the movie has much to recommend it and it's definitely more of a thumbs up than a thumbs down. Allen seems to be more involved in the story, with more of a real passion to tell it, than he has been with any of this movies in the past several years. In fact, more than any of his other films, this one rather reminds me of his sophisticated New Yorker short stories, where he often dealt with some of the great classic books and writers of the past. It's hard not to have a fascinating film when the cast of characters is largely made up of some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and Allen has provided them with some of his strongest and funniest material. In particular, two performances stand out: Adrian Brody is hysterical almost beyond words as Salvador Dali, every bit as surreal in life as his art might lead you to expect. And Corey Stoll is utter amazing as Ernest Hemingway. I've seen Hemingway attempted by other actors in the past, but I don't think any of those actors has managed to get right to the core of the kind of character that Hemingway wrote about... especially while being funny at the same time, and still not seeming out of character (in spite of the fact that Hemingway was not exactly known to be a barrel of laughs). But Stoll gets it right on the money. If Hollywood ever decides to do another Hemingway biopic, they're missing a good bet if they don't get him.

But I would be very amiss if I didn't mention something that I never would have imagined I'd see from Woody Allen, given his penchant for nostalgia... a story that ultimately winds up questioning the very CONCEPT of nostalgia. When Gil begins waxing romantic about the Paris of the 1920's, I started thinking "here we go again"... but ultimately he winds up meeting characters in the 20's who are waxing nostalgic about the years prior to THAT... and when he makes a brief detour to THAT prior era, people are looking nostalgically back to the renaissance. Gil... and thereby the audience... eventually comes to realize that every generation has always thought the past was better and more romantic and perfect, and it rarely if ever has been (which is not, of course, to say that there haven't sometimes been better and more creative artists then). This is quite a breakthrough for Allen, and it makes the move more than just a sentimental wallow in times gone by. You could say it even gives a rather slight premise a bit more depth.

I was kind of surprised to learn that "Midnight In Paris" has also become Allen's biggest money-making film of all time, earning more than "Annie Hall", "Manhattan", or anything else in his long film career. I'm not entirely sure why... it definitely isn't better than those two, or other Allen films like "Crimes and Misdemeanors". But it does give contemporary movie audiences a more sophisticated style of humor than they've been getting in most film comedies, an inventive and amusing look back at some great artists they likely weren't familiar with, and a different perspective on the subject of blind, mindless nostalgia. It does appear that there is an audience for a film like that, and it is encouraging to see at least some people interested in seeing that sort of thing. Or maybe they just want to see Owen Wilson in something that isn't totally wacky. Whatever. In any event, "Midnight In Paris" is a well-made, amusing film that will is worth your time.