(2011, Dir. Woody Allen)
In Short: Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a nostalgic Hollywood screenwriter working on a novel in Paris with his fiancee's family, where he finds himself transported to the 1920s every night at midnight, during which time he meets his artistic idols. First of all: The good stuff. I thought the opening series of shots was really gorgeous--establishing shots of the city with very little camera movement and really saturated colors and jazz music in the background. I thought that was great! It set a great tone for a movie that was so much about the city of Paris itself as a living, breathing sort of entity. The costumes and sets in the past were gorgeous, too. So was the cinematography! The shot of the two couples in the art gallery looking at the Monets was stunning and very memorable. And yet.... I would have been obsessed with this movie when I was a freshman. I was definitely living under the impression that I was born in the wrong generation, just like Gil thinks he is. I would have loved the idea of going back in time and getting to live in the past for even a little while. I still thought I would at least like this movie. I didn't. I liked the stuff that I talked about before. Unfortunately, there was a lot more I didn't like. The plot felt very gimmicky and predictable. I knew exactly when Gil would try to show Inez what had happened to him, I knew that she wouldn't believe him, etc. It's the same old song and dance. Speaking of the same old song and dance, Woody Allen wrote my least favorite kind of joke into this screenplay. It's the joke you get in time travel movies where the person who has traveled back in time meets a famous person and gives the famous person the idea for their great famous work. It happens in Midnight in Paris with Bunuel. This type of joke never makes me laugh, it just makes me irrationally mad. Another issue I had was the disconnect between the present and the past stories. And, yes, I get it. They're two different things, they're Gil's two different lives, etc. You don't have to tell me. But too many elements were changed. The tone, the color palette, the performances, the style of cinematography, everything was different. It was too big a jump to make. The unity of the film was lost on me. There were a lot of other reasons why I didn't like this movie. And maybe I'm just tired and angry and giving Woody Allen a hard time (but, I mean, he deserves it). I wanted to love Midnight in Paris. I didn't. Oh well.
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AuthorEileen here, writing reviews for film class. Archives
April 2018
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