Peter Morrison

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

This film gave me a warm glow. It isn’t hilarious or dazzlingly witty, but it raises some wry smiles. It isn’t at all original either, however it’s clichés have been lovingly polished.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is basically a bitter-sweet romance. Hollywood screenwriter Gil Pender (the ever boyish Owen Wilson) visits Paris with his utterly incompatible fiancée Inex (Rachel McAdams) and her unpleasantly conservative parents. None of them understand or appreciate Gil’s desire to write a great novel or to wander the streets of Paris or to walk in the rain. They are not romantics, that is their problem!

Since the film is a sort of a fairy tale, Gil finds himself back in the 1920’s, meeting the Fitzgerald’s, Dali, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway and various other artists. There’s even a joke about Luis Bunuel, which is very flattering of Woody, thank you. (But who was Djuna Barnes?!). And Gil falls in love with one of Picassso’s spare mistresses. He wants to stay with her in the golden age of cafes and jazz.

As a striking contrast, Gil’s visits back to Inex become more and more brittle and awkward, in vintage Woody style. In the end he learns his lesson- everyone thinks that their own time is insignificant compared with the golden age of long ago, so one should be one-self and accept one’s world.

Our hero learns his lesson and receives the ultimate lesson for a Woody hero, a beautiful woman, noticeably younger than himself, who loves the music of her grandparents’ time, just as much as Gil does.

They walk off in the rain. Isn’t that lovely?! It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but it works!

I should say that Paris looks gorgeous in this film, both in its modern and in its 1920’s setting. The opening sequence of various scenes of Parisian life is absolutely wonderful- and a blatant copy of the opening to MANHATTAN. It made me want to go to Paris straight away!

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS has become one of Woody’s most successful movies, and deservedly so. I hear that he is ‘doing’ Rome next. I can’t wait!

© Peter Morrison

6th July, 2012

Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, Woody Allen, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Sydney Arts Guide, Peter Morrison.

Published by Peter Morrison

Peter Morrison was brought in the vast area west of Sydney known as Suburbia. He was educated, at first, by Nuns, then Brothers, and finally by Academics. He has also has educated himself by reading a large number of randomly chosen books. Having achievcd a small degree of success- a Bachelor of Arts, at Sydney University, he has since disappeared into the lower branches of the Public Service. Sporadic, unconfirmed sightings of him have continued to be made, up to the present day.