Midnight in Paris review

Midnight in Paris

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Martin Sheen, Corey Stoll, Tom Hiddleston.

Review by: Zulfi (4/5)

            Woody Allen shows Hollywood how time travelling could be done with the lowest budget in ‘Midnight in Paris’. That’s because his time travelling has more to do with meeting the past writers of the surrealism era in Paris rather than any other thing. Sure, there are shots of old Paris, but they are generally managed in interiors of old dim lighted hotels, bars, and clubs of the 20’s. but when you such a wit in your writing and a wild fertile imagination even at such an old age, what more could you ask for. ‘Midnight in Paris’ has that flair in writing with mordant remarks on the present when compared to the nostalgic past.

            The movie begins when Gil Pender, a Hollywood hack who didn’t give actual literature a shot (in his own words), tags along with his fiancée, Inez to a trip to Paris. It is sponsored by Inez’s wealthy, businessman dad, who along with his wife scoffs at the poor choice of their daughter in terms of partner. ‘Cheap is cheap’ her mother says when Gil suggests an alternate furniture to Inez’s costly tastes. She doesn’t like the way he is love with Paris and wants him to work for movies rather than his passion of book writing. But Gil is a very tender soul. He likes the world to be a simpler place with less of the modern devices and dreams of Paris in the 20’s (preferably in the rain), when people had quieter lives. The young couple meet Inez’s friend Paul and his wife Carol by chance. Paul is a public speaker, who has come to speak at Sorbonne. He is a know-it-all nightmare, who elaborates on anything from nostalgia to Nocardia. He makes fun of the novel Gil is writing about a nostalgia shop. After wine tasting one night with Paul and Carol, Gil wants to take the leave for the night. But Inez wants to join the other couple for some discotheque fun. Gil leaves her to her own devices and tries to get back to his hotel but loses track and sits on the pavement for some respite. Just then when the midnight bell chimes, an old vintage car stops before him with old fashion clothed imbibers inviting him to join for some fun. He shortly finds himself at Jean Cocteau’s party.

            Long before he knows, he is rolling through bars and rollercoaster rides hobnobbing with Scott Fitzgeralds, Ernst Hemingways, Cole Porters, Gertrude Steins and whom not after travelling back to 20s. He is fascinated by his literary idols and is like a kid at a candy store all happy and listening to every word the geniuses utter. But the fly in the ointment is that he is back to his age by the mornings. Undaunted by his fiancee’s rebukes of his late night wanderings, he continues to meet his nocturnal friends. His novel, which he rejects to be critiqued by Paul, is given to Hermingway, who good naturedly offers to Gertrude to review. All of them welcome this new age literary talent in to their horde. Gil feels he is right among his company with all these witty talkers and talented artists. And then one day he meets Adriane, who is the lover of Picasso. She loves Gil’s writing and says she is a wannabe fashion designer and laments of her present 20’s of Paris. She thinks the late 1800s of Paris is the golden age. But both of them strike a chord as they roam on the late hours of Paris getting deep into their romance. And then one day a horse drawn carriage ushers the couple for a ride and both of them are transported back to the late 1800s which was Adriana’s preference of the era to exist. Adriana wants to stay in that time zone but Gil wants to go back to 20’s. soon, he understands that he can’t fit in the surrealistic age even if he wants to and goes back to the present era abandoning his nocturnal visits after having bitter experience with Adriana. He breaks up with Inez as she had been going out with Paul clandestinely in his absence in the nights. In the final scene, he strikes up conversation with a teenage local shopkeeper, whom he had met once and walks in the rain with her with budding blossoms of new romance.

            The movie states in its pictorially sublime way how beautiful Paris is. The first few minutes Jazz score of ‘Si tu Vois ma mere’ by Sidney Bechet, dovetails with the scenic beauty of Paris such that it sets the tone for romance ahead. Paris couldn’t be more alluring with its rain and with its population at ease with the comfort in the atmosphere. It is a montage of visual poetry which revels in the notes of the clarinet so rightly accentuating the mood of the placid and artistic metropolis. It is such a convenient fact as to why Gil is in love with this city. He is of an artistic mind with romance, an integral part of it. It is probably is his easy going way which makes him work it out with his fiancée, Inez, who is of nagging disposition.

            But Allen works the magic of words which seethe with deep philosophy by converting it into humor. When Hemingway outright says that Gil’s book is bad without even reading it, he explains it in a way of aptitude but which spells comic theme. When Gil sits with the great artists like Dali, Luis Bunuel, the way each of them reacts to a certain situation in their own manner and art is accurately funny. Though Paul speaks so ill of Gil analyzing the latter as an escapist from the current era and shirker from competition and is in denial, it is Allen himself speaking. Though it may tend to be a little acerbic, there is a modicum of truth in the philosophy. All through the way, it is Allen who shines reveling in the flair of his nib.

            The movie’s humor has major chunk of it in the in-jokes of the famous authors. We see how Gil provides a revolutionary idea to Bunuel, who made his best film on it. He tells Djuna Barnes lead him to dance, which obviously is no surprise. He observes the personal lives of Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, which had a teetering relationship thereafter. He looks at the way Hemingway is lost in his own world with his obsession of writing and of his war past. Allen doesn’t miss humor in the era jumping theme by making the detective agency man find his way into the palace of a medieval monarch.

All the people who play the celebrities probably present the closest personality to the real ones. Corey Stoll’s diction is firm and lucid like Ernst’s prose. Tom Hiddleston looks elegant, intelligent and caring as the male Fitzgerald while his wife is suicide prone alcoholic. Adrien Brody’s Dali is energetic, impetuous and extrinsic lost in his creative artistic world thinking of painting a rhinoceros forgetting the world around him. He wants to put himself away from damage. Taking a break from ‘educating paul’s gallery art, Gil explains Picasso’s painting in retrospection taking word to word detail of Gertrude Stein. He even tries to dethrone this speech monarch by siding with the art guide (Carla Bruni) regarding somebody’s wife or mistress. Michael Sheen is irkingly appropriate as the overbearing encyclopedia.

            Owen Wilson is charming as the laidback author who is child at heart and still is on lookout for aesthetics and romance, the quintessential element of an artist. But Marion Cotillard is ravishing as the dainty lover of Picasso, Adriana. She has such a panache in her body language and even her talk is seductive and proper at the same time. She becomes the easy reason for why Gil wants to deviate from his fiancée.

            But Allen is obviously throughout the whole movie as Gil, who loves art for what it is. He makes us understand the golden age of the past and magic of nostalgia, which could never be reproduced and which probably could be one of the greatest feelings to be felt. This movie is made for our good fortune and for us modern world citizens to respect the greatest geniuses who had steered the world as to what it is now. He intelligently skips VFX in the way he depicts time travelling leaving no smoke or residue behind. I like the same way his opening credits come on screen for every movie. His simple representation is his defying strength as his subject matter weighs much more. ‘Midnight in Paris’ is one such work.