Midnight in Paris
Crit
My face hurts. You know how when you're young and in brand-new-best-ever love, and you smile so much that your face hurts? That's how I feel in the wake of my favorite Woody since Annie. A familiar concept freshly and brilliantly realized, as Woody manqué (maybe the best ever) Owen Wilson's screenwriter/novelist wannabe Gil finds himself among the expatriate community of Paris, circa 1920. Who knows what those people were really like to be around, but who can say the portrayals of Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Scott (Tom Hiddleston) and Zelda (Alison Pill), and Cole Porter (Yves Heck) aren't note perfect? Hell, just hearing Adrien Brody's Dalí say "rhinoceros" makes it real for me.In fact, one of only two complaints I have--and it's not much of a complaint, because it's on an irrelevant point--is that the inevitable insight that we have to live each in our own age is thoroughly unconvincing, because we'd trade antibiotics any day for the Jazz Age and Belle Epoque Parises that we see.
A more serious reservation is that the film would be more satisfactory (which is to say, pretty much perfect) if Gil's 21st-century fiancée were not so slam-dunk wrong for him (or for anybody with any sensitivity). Why not make the choice more of a challenge? Though to give Allen his due, making any character played by Rachel McAdams unappealing has such a high degree of difficulty that a director can be forgiven just for the attempt to pull it off--and all the more when he succeeds so completely.
Trailers
- A Better Life--An immigrant father and son seek the titular commodity. Looks awfully goopy, but the fact that Chris Weitz directed gives it some cred.
- Take Shelter--He sees live weather conditions; Jeff Nichols writes and directs something very Shyamalanny.
1 comment:
Yes, the character of Inez (and would her parents even have chosen such an exotic name? There must be a reason) is a problem--it was hard to suspend disbelief that he couldn't see how awful she is. I know he's supposed to be sexually besotted, but she was physically pretty, not what I'd call alluring. Anyway, Denby put his finger on it: it's a fable. So we have stereotyped villains, so we should get over it.
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