Midnight in Paris

Composite Score: 85.63

Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, John Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Michael Sheen, Nina Arianda, Carla Bruni, Alison Pill, Tom Hiddleston, Corey Stoll, Marion Cotillard, and Léa Seydoux

Director: Woody Allen

Writer: Woody Allen

Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual references and smoking

Box Office: $151.67 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s film about a screenwriter who travels to Paris with his fiancée and her parents while in the midst of writing a novel and who then finds himself transported back to 1920s Paris during his late-night strolls through the city. The film stars Owen Wilson in the leading role of Gil Pender supported by Rachel McAdams as his fiancée Inez, Michael Sheen and Nina Arianda as her friends Paul and Carol Bates, Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway, Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Léa Seydoux as French shopkeeper Gabrielle, and Marion Cotillard as Adriana, the fictional lover of Picasso. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction and won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It continues to be celebrated for its wit, whimsy, and the wisdom that it offers about the nature of looking back and living in the present.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                Well, it’s a Woody Allen film, so as always, take that into consideration when you jump in. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, please go check out my review of Husbands and Wives to get caught up.) Aside from that, I think, now that I have grown up some from my first watch of the film back in 2011, there are some clear caricaturifications of the famed members of the Lost Generation who appear in Gil’s travels back to the 1920s. While none of the acting is terrible, I feel like Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and (in his brief cameo) Dali all come across as portrayals of the notes on them from a high school art, literature, or history class. Though they are meant to be real people (I think, depending on your interpretation of the events of the film), they feel more like characters or archetypes who have always been a certain way and will remain that way forever. The portrayal of Gertrude Stein feels fairly free from this oversimplification of character (though her sexuality never really comes up in conversation), as does the fictional Adriana, who is arguably the most fleshed-out of the “past” ensemble.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                The true highlight of Midnight in Paris lies in the wisdom that it offers. While couched in a world of nostalgia with a protagonist obsessed with the past, the film offers some poignant advice about appreciating the mundane nature of the present because it’s all that we have. Gil’s trips to the past might seem wondrous and enviable, but at the end of the day, he’s able to solve most of his problems simply by choosing to be more assertive and take a few more risks. Nostalgia for bygone eras discounts the mundane nature of those eras in their times. Of course, we only see the highlights when we look back, but if we miss out on the opportunity in the present to create some highlights of our own, of course we’ll always have this sense of frustration. Sometimes it takes looking back, like Gil, to some what-if or seeking the wisdom of those who have gone before us, but at the end of the day, it’s our own decisions, just as Gil discovered for himself, that determine our present satisfaction. The rest of the film serves as window dressing for this premise, and not all of it might be your particular cup of tea, but for a quick ninety minutes, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything quite so inspiring to get up off of your couch and go seek out those things that inspire you.

                Midnight in Paris utilizes its nostalgia to remind its audience that the present has just as much to offer as the past if only we choose to pursue it, a worthy entry into the annals of the Greatest Films of All Time. Some of its portrayals of historical figures might come across as a bit cartoonish, but the central figures of Owen Wilson’s Gil, Rachel McAdams’s Inez, and Marion Cotillard’s Adriana all feel so lived in and relatable in some way or another so as to salvage the whole film. You can currently rent this film on most streaming services if you’re looking to give it a watch in the near future.