Review: Midnight in Paris

A director as prolific as Woody Allen is bound to have plenty of misses to go along with the hits. But even an ardent admirer of Mr. Allen’s such as myself was hard-pressed to find anything redeeming about his last outing, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, a sloppy, unpleasant film that found an apparently apathetic Woody unable to create even a compelling framework from which to hang his sour misanthropy. Which is why it’s such a delight to discover that his newest offering, Midnight in Paris, is a wonderful film, easily his best in some time and one that reaffirms Woody as a singular storytelling voice in today’s cinema.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is, believe it or not, a struggling writer (it is a Woody Allen movie after all) who has come to Paris with his shallow, unpleasant fiancée Ines (Rachel McAdams), tagging along with her parents. Gil venerates the city, not as it exists today, but rather the Paris of the twenties, where writers like Hemingway talked shop with Gertrude Stein, where Luis Bunuel fraternized with Salvador Dali and the music of Cole Porter filled the air. Hoping for the possibility that the city will inspire him, and to escape from the insufferable pretensions of a family friend (Michael Sheen), Gil goes wandering around the city at night, only to be transported (the mechanics of this are left pleasingly vague) back to the Paris of Gil’s romantic yearning. Now, in the thick of this creative heyday, Gil couldn’t be happier, while Ines begins to question where he’s going to late at nights. But even as Gil connects with a beautiful French woman in the past (Marion Cotillard), his unusual circumstances allow him to question both his romantic conception of the past and his outlook on the present day.

Midnight in Paris finds the director moving away from the world-weary cynicism of his last two films and into the realm of magical realism. Even before Gil steps back in time Allen presents us with an idealized Paris, one we’re introduced to first in a picturesque, pre-credit montage of the city reminiscent of Allen’s love letter to his own hometown, Manhattan. Clearly the director is as in love with the city as his protagonist, which is fitting, as Gil is another in the long line of Woody Allen stand-ins (sometimes it’s hard not to imagine Woody reciting Gil’s lines). Luckily Wilson, who can be an understated comedic performer when paired with the right material, brings his amiable charm to the performance, which allows Gil’s typical Allen neuroses and mannerisms to be charming rather than grating (as can sometimes be the case). Once Gil takes the trip back in time, he is suddenly surrounded by the artists whose work he idolizes: people like Hemingway, Fitzgerald (both of them) and Dali. These roles are inhabited by a gallery of charming character actors, from the recognizable (Adrien Brody kills as Dali) to the less familiar (Corey Stoll, who’s worked mostly in television, brings a fierce concentration and roguish charm necessary to inhabit the role of Ernest Hemingway). While sometimes the sheer volume of influential artists Gil encounters can become a bit much– there are many variations on the line, “I’d like you to meet Luis.” “Luis Bunuel? The filmmaker?!” – each is memorable in their own way.

What elevates Midnight in Paris from being just a pleasant, time-spanning travelogue is Woody’s exploration of nostalgia and how it keeps us from moving forward as individuals. Early on in the film, Michael Sheen’s slick operator proclaims nostalgia to be a form of denial, one that denies the realities of the present for a comfortably idealized version of the past. While Sheen’s character is derided as a pseudo-intellectual, the film in some ways affirms his sentiments. While Gil’s time in the past is well spent, this fantasy of the past is just that: a fantasy. The film isn’t discounting nostalgia entirely, and it certainly conveys the allure of such a fantasy. But the romantic pull of the past, embodied by the mysterious and ethereal Marion Cotillard, has a flip side, a refusal to engage with the present and, thus, discounts the possibility for real growth. What Gil takes from his time spent in the past is valuable and, in acknowledging the realities of his present day circumstances, awakens him to the possibilities in his own life. It is a refreshingly uplifting outlook, and it’s gratifying to be reminded that Allen can evoke this sense of wonder and magic in what he would otherwise consider a cold, indifferent universe.

Midnight in Paris certainly has issues. As might be expected with someone who shoots a new script every year, some of the characters get shortchanged. Rachel McAdams, in particular, doesn’t get to have much dimension; she’s a shrew at the start and stays that way till the end, leaving us to wonder what Gil ever saw in her other than a sounding board reaffirming his own insecurities. Michael Sheen, delightfully smarmy in the few scenes he gets, is more or less discarded from the picture entirely; he could have done with one more scene. Luckily other characters that were probably thin on paper (McAdams’ parents in particular) are elevated by the performances and some great Woody Allen lines (“The detective agency says the detective has gone missing”). The cinematography is gorgeous at presenting Paris, both past and present, in a romantic light and the evocative score contributes greatly to that effect as well.

Woody Allen has said that he makes films only to take his mind off of death and that he doesn’t think that any of his films will be remembered. While one could certainly beg to differ on the second point, lately his films have started to feel as much a chore for the audience as they seem to have become for Allen himself. Luckily Midnight in Paris finds Woody (and us) escaping into the best kind of fantasy: A romantic fantasy of Paris as it was and as it is now, a fantasy where the artists of yesterday are living, vibrant inspirations for today, a fantasy where nostalgia is embodied as a gorgeous, unobtainable woman and where the world is, if only for 94 minutes, a place brimming with mystery, magic and possibility.