Midnight in Paris (2011)
Directed by Woody Allen
While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.
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My favorite sequence was a snappy reference to Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece The Exterminating Angel in a hilarious encounter between Gil and the elite director.
Allen tweaks cinematic history by having Gil suggest the plot of "The Exterminating Angel" to Dali's pal Luis Bunuel (Adrien de Van, "In My Skin") who fails to see any sense in it while Man Ray (Tom Cordier) finds nothing odd about Gil's tale of time travel ('But you're a surrealist!' replies Gil).
There, he boozes it up with Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll, killing it), finds a first reader for his manuscript in Gertrude Stein (Bates), and on a lark pitches future filmmaker Luis Buñuel the plot of the eternally baffling The Exterminating Angel ("But what does it mean?!" Buñuel puzzles after him – indeed).
After the stroke of midnight, Gil is transported to the Paris of the 1920s, where he rubs psyches with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Dali, Luis Bunuel, et al. (There's a playful allusion to Bunuel's classic The Exterminating Angel, 1962).
And it’s in the film’s most irreverent, introspective moment that Gil pitches Buñuel the idea for the Spanish filmmaker’s own The Exterminating Angel , whose story, about upper-class types unable to leave the prison of their own making, is believable as an account of Gil’s own life.
Intelligent, insightful, and inspired in ways that recall Allen's best movies (cue, yes, nostalgia), it's playful and absurd, evoking Annie Hall and The Purple Rose of Cairo, but it also firmly reminds us that Allen is as vital as ever, with so much still to say about art and love and quietly desperate moments, even if it comes wrapped in his ever-familiar box.
One must submit to relaxed rhythms of “Midnight in Paris”, which definitely echoes back some to Allen’s own “The Purple Rose of Cairo”, but that’s not at all a difficult task.
A magical-realist gem harking back to "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Midnight" is a bit thin and glib to call a masterpiece - at 75, Allen is unlikely to have another one of those in him - but it's still a delicious trifle for anyone who has ever dreamt of bantering about the cinema with Luis Buñuel or lounging at the piano to hear Cole Porter sing "Let's Do It."
Large portions of Midnight in Paris reminded me more of A Night at the Museum than The Purple Rose of Cairo.
It’s a charming, fanciful comedy in the vein of “Bullets over Broadway” and “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” the kind of movie I honestly thought Woody had lost the knack for.
Allen just breezes past all that, the way he did in his great The Purple Rose of Cairo and, before that, in his 1977 short story ?The Kugelmass Episode.? Actually, the twenties scenes recall another Allen story, ?A Twenties Memory,? which is full of passages as blissful as this: ?Hemingway had just finished two short stories about prize fighting, and while Gertrude Stein and I both thought they were decent, we agreed they still needed much work ?
Whether you prefer the “early, funny ones” like “Sleeper” or his romantic comedies like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” or his later serious comedies like “Hannah And Her Sisters” and “Crimes And Misdemeanors,” the new Woody Allen film was something to be anticipated.
In only its third week in U.S. theaters, it expands today to more than 940 screens, making it the most available Woody Allen movie since the director's "Manhattan"/"Annie Hall" heyday (with the puzzling exception of 2003's already-forgotten "Anything Else," with "American Pie" star Jason Biggs).
But her parents (Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy) are temporarily in Paris, and so is her pretentious ex-beau Paul (Michael Sheen, channeling Michael Murphy from "Manhattan"), so Inez keeps herself busy while Gil goes out to soak up the rain and inspiration.
His depiction of the privileged — ostentatiously devoid of other classes and races — might have been something to aspire to when “Manhattan” came out, but it’s painfully divorced from reality now when so many well-to-do people have been hit by the dot-com bubble, ponzi schemes or what have you.
The closest Allen came to showing how to live like a romantic in a world full of pain and dissatisfaction was Manhattan -- a film that is arguably his best and ends with a wise teenager reminding Woody’s middle-aged character that you have to have a little faith in people.
Allen opens the film "Manhattan"-style, with a series of love-letter shots to the French capital, mixing anonymous side-street cafes with iconic landmarks, progressing from day to evening to late night.
Whether you prefer the “early, funny ones” like “Sleeper” or his romantic comedies like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” or his later serious comedies like “Hannah And Her Sisters” and “Crimes And Misdemeanors,” the new Woody Allen film was something to be anticipated.
In only its third week in U.S. theaters, it expands today to more than 940 screens, making it the most available Woody Allen movie since the director's "Manhattan"/"Annie Hall" heyday (with the puzzling exception of 2003's already-forgotten "Anything Else," with "American Pie" star Jason Biggs).
Sheen gets skewered in a time-travel version Allen's famous Marshall McLuhan gag from "Annie Hall."
Gil is already bothered by the fact that Inez would rather shop than indulge in true Parisian culture, and things are made worse by the arrival of Paul (Michael Sheen), a pretentious literary professor who loves to pontificate, that particular form of shallow intellectualism that Allen has made a constant target in his films (at least since the self-important Columbia professor waxed obnoxiously about Marshall McLuhan and Federico Fellini in Annie Hall).
Allen doesn’t do nearly enough with Gil’s return to Inez and normalcy during daylight hours, though one scene, in which Gil interrupts the insufferable Paul’s lecture on a Picasso painting by correcting him — Gil has first hand knowledge, now — is “Annie Hall” hilarious.
Although he has crossed the Atlantic yet again for his latest, “Midnight in Paris” deliberately channels the same deep-rooted fascination with the storied 1920s as did “Zelig,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Sweet and Lowdown.”
The man has the ability to channel surrealism and fantasy with films like “Zelig” and “Sleeper,” and thankfully “Midnight in Paris” is a return to form.
When it does, Woody digs into his personal yesteryear to replay the magic-realism card he pulled out in Zelig and The Purple Rose of Cairo.
And the peek behind the curtain of time and reality is familiar from "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Zelig."
Wilson’s face is both goofy and heartbreaking in its openness, and it speaks of something we don’t often see in Allen’s movies: Genuine yearning, and not just the desire to be someone else (an idea Allen explored cogently in Zelig), but to be somewhere else, decades away from the here and now.
At the same time, this is “Zelig’’ without a spine, a work that wallows in the nostalgia it professes to puncture.
"Midnight in Paris" isn't as telling about class as Allen's "Match Point," or as celebratory and vivid about being smitten by a European city as "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
Having already plundered London (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and various locations in Spain (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), it was only a matter of time before he found his way to the place that Bogie and Ingrid Bergman would always remember.
Late-era Woody has been an interesting phenomenon to watch, as his occasional hits (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and stupefying misses (Scoop) come hard on each other’s heels.
Obviously, one should never take the word of a dedicated Woody Allen apologist at face value, particularly given our clockwork-like tendency to proclaim "Woody is back to form!" every three years (in 2008, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ; in 2005, Match Point ; in 2002, Hollywood Ending so it's not a perfect fit, but you get what I'm driving at).
Some will find themselves bored within the first three minutes, which is composed entirely of beautiful images of Paris, but that is part of the enchanting appeal of this film - Allen wants you to love Paris as much as Gil does and wants to show you the magic, the romance and the spark the city holds for him, much as Allen did with the cities of Spain in 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
As was the case with Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Woody Allen brings out, for the first time in an American film, the fire and allure Cotillard has shown in her European work.
Obviously, one should never take the word of a dedicated Woody Allen apologist at face value, particularly given our clockwork-like tendency to proclaim "Woody is back to form!" every three years (in 2008, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ; in 2005, Match Point ; in 2002, Hollywood Ending so it's not a perfect fit, but you get what I'm driving at).
Sure, Match Point was quite intriguing, and there were the low-key charms of Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona ... but it will take a pretty long time to wash away the stench of the run that included Anything Else, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Although he has crossed the Atlantic yet again for his latest, “Midnight in Paris” deliberately channels the same deep-rooted fascination with the storied 1920s as did “Zelig,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Sweet and Lowdown.”
It’s a charming, fanciful comedy in the vein of “Bullets over Broadway” and “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” the kind of movie I honestly thought Woody had lost the knack for.
John Cusack was fine in “Bullets Over Broadway,” but the usually outstanding Kenneth Branagh was embarrassing in “Celebrity” and Will Ferrell seemed to be sleepwalking through “Melinda And Melinda.”
You know that this is not a work of depth as, say, Hannah and Her Sisters had depth, or even Bullets over Broadway.
His latest, the swell soirée "Midnight in Paris," has it both ways, re-creating the period-piece charms of "Bullets Over Broadway" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" while spoofing his own infatuation with a world gone by.
The buzz: Writer-director Woody Allen's most recent successes ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona," "Match Point") have come from the I-make-a-movie-every-year-no-matter-what filmmaker finding inspiration in a new, fetching European city.
There is a certain familiarity to Midnight in Paris, despite its being the first of Allen’s films to be shot in the City of Lights (his current love of Europe, which started with the London-set Match Point in 2005, shows no signs of abating), but it is worn comfortably and without excuses.
But although Allen will probably never rekindle the magic of his earlier movies, he comes pretty close with "Midnight in Paris," a light and funny comedy that's easily his best film since "Match Point" and also somewhat of a return to form for the veteran writer/director.
While it might not be anywhere near as inspired as “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” it’s entirely possible to enjoy what I’d rank as his second best this century (ahead of the highly overrated and self-important “Match Point”), if you approach it with modest expectations.
While darker films like Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Match Point (2005) have been the highlights from the later part of Allen’s career, Midnight in Paris is his most charming, romantic and funny film in a long time.
Being as inconsistent as he is prolific, it would be fair to say that Woody Allen’s late-day career has been hot-and-cold at best; for every success – most recently the likes of Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona – there is something that didn’t quite work – Cassandra’s Dream or Scoop – and even in his better recent films, there is a bitter taste of misanthropy which, while at one time fresh and diverting, has long become tiresome and trite.
Although he has crossed the Atlantic yet again for his latest, “Midnight in Paris” deliberately channels the same deep-rooted fascination with the storied 1920s as did “Zelig,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Sweet and Lowdown.”
In fact, the film that thus opens is Allen's best, or at any rate by a considerable margin his most pleasurable, since at least Sweet and Lowdown , which perhaps not coincidentally was also a loopy, desperately romantic tribute to the glories of the Jazz Age.
But considering Allen hasn't made an unqualified success since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown, it's easy to shrug off Midnight in Paris' occasional fumble when weighed against so much cleverness and canniness and, bien sûr, irresistible charm.
Like Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown, Wilson delivers Allen’s lines without being trapped in an Allen imitation.
The man has the ability to channel surrealism and fantasy with films like “Zelig” and “Sleeper,” and thankfully “Midnight in Paris” is a return to form.
Whether you prefer the “early, funny ones” like “Sleeper” or his romantic comedies like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” or his later serious comedies like “Hannah And Her Sisters” and “Crimes And Misdemeanors,” the new Woody Allen film was something to be anticipated.
Sure, Match Point was quite intriguing, and there were the low-key charms of Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona ... but it will take a pretty long time to wash away the stench of the run that included Anything Else, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Allen's last movie, Anything Else, seemed to indicate that he was eschewing the plot-heavy vibe that's dominated his work as of late, but Melinda and Melinda veers off too heavily in the other direction.
Cinematographer Darius Khondji (who shot Allen’s 2003 film Anything Else and is also working on his next film) makes Paris feel truly magical, especially during a lyrical opening montage of static shots set to Sidney Bechet’s “Si Tu Vois Ma Mère.”
Allen has often made a practice of pouring himself into his lead characters, sometimes with embarrassing, unwatchable results (as in the case of the aspiring comedy writer played by Jason Biggs in Anything Else).
While darker films like Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Match Point (2005) have been the highlights from the later part of Allen’s career, Midnight in Paris is his most charming, romantic and funny film in a long time.
Yet this tartly ironic tour of the Modernist playground of '20s Paris is his funniest movie since Deconstructing Harry (1997), the last time he indulged in such a playful conceit.
Any time he plops his persona into the middle of a high-concept setting the result has been delightful (think Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,Purple Rose of Cairo, or Deconstructing Harry).
It's the light mockery of somebody who knows what he's talking about and loves the object of his parody; it's humor for the well-read, though probably not as daunting as Allen's Love and Death in that regard (anyone likely to see a Woody Allen movie probably knows why painting Hemingway as a monosyllabic violence freak is at least conceptually funny).
For every Match Point or Vicky Christina Barcelona there’s a Cassandra’s Dream or Whatever Works.
Sure, Match Point was quite intriguing, and there were the low-key charms of Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona ... but it will take a pretty long time to wash away the stench of the run that included Anything Else, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Being as inconsistent as he is prolific, it would be fair to say that Woody Allen’s late-day career has been hot-and-cold at best; for every success – most recently the likes of Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona – there is something that didn’t quite work – Cassandra’s Dream or Scoop – and even in his better recent films, there is a bitter taste of misanthropy which, while at one time fresh and diverting, has long become tiresome and trite.
Having already plundered London (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and various locations in Spain (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), it was only a matter of time before he found his way to the place that Bogie and Ingrid Bergman would always remember.
The inclusion of several head-scratchingly needless interludes - ie Begley, Jr's tedious encounter with a gay man at a bar - within its home stretch cements Whatever Works' place as a sporadically watchable yet hopelessly uneven piece of work, and - given the strength of such recent endeavors as Cassandra's Dream and Vicky Cristina Barcelona - it would appear that Allen is better off working overseas.
Sure, Match Point was quite intriguing, and there were the low-key charms of Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona ... but it will take a pretty long time to wash away the stench of the run that included Anything Else, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
For starters, Allen’s pure comedies—think Scoop, Whatever Works and, shudder, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion—have been his weakest movies of late, which is strange considering that he’s directed some of the funniest films in Hollywood history.
The film - which stars Allen as Val, a filmmaker who is stricken with a case of psychosomatic blindness on the eve of a pivotal shoot - is undoubtedly an improvement over last's year's mediocre The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, yet one ultimately can't help but wonder if the strain of making a movie a year has finally gotten to the reclusive director.
For every Match Point or Vicky Christina Barcelona there’s a Cassandra’s Dream or Whatever Works.
Doing for his new French setting what he did for New York City in 1979's "Manhattan," writer-director Woody Allen (2009's " Whatever Works ") knows, if nothing else, how to capture a particular location on film with all the rapturous nostalgia and dreamlike eloquence he can muster.
For a director whose recent work has at times seemed irredeemably contemptuous and bitter (after Whatever Works , I almost swore him off for good), this small, delicately realized fable feels—appropriately enough—like a visit to another time.
But the years since have been better, with Allen cranking out standout films like "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008), the very funny, Larry David-starring "Whatever Works" (2009) and now "Midnight in Paris."
Woody Allen is well known for his love of New York City with films like “Manhattan” and “Stardust Memories.”
The aliens of Allen's "Stardust Memories" said that if a comedian like Allen wanted to do mankind a service, he'd tell funnier jokes.
Sure, Match Point was quite intriguing, and there were the low-key charms of Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona ... but it will take a pretty long time to wash away the stench of the run that included Anything Else, Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Unlike the majority of Woody Allen's recent efforts, the failure of Melinda and Melinda can't be attributed to an outwardly obvious source.
John Cusack was fine in “Bullets Over Broadway,” but the usually outstanding Kenneth Branagh was embarrassing in “Celebrity” and Will Ferrell seemed to be sleepwalking through “Melinda And Melinda.”
Either way, Midnight in Paris feels totally fresh, not recycled like Shadows and Fog (1992), which was in fact based on one of his old stories.
If you like this, try: reading about the artistic community in Paris between the wars and Woody Allen’s films, “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and “Radio Days”…
Radio Days (1987) did that, and so did Everyone Says I Love You (1996).
Whether you prefer the “early, funny ones” like “Sleeper” or his romantic comedies like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” or his later serious comedies like “Hannah And Her Sisters” and “Crimes And Misdemeanors,” the new Woody Allen film was something to be anticipated.
To put it in context: it’s hardly a masterpiece on the level of Allen’s “Annie Hall”, “Manhattan”, “Hannah and Her Sisters”, or “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, or even an exciting change of pace like “Match Point”.
The story is a variation of ones Allen explored as long ago as "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and as recently as "Vicky Cristina Barcelona": A man is torn between two women, except that this time, one of the women doesn't exist.
Whether you prefer the “early, funny ones” like “Sleeper” or his romantic comedies like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” or his later serious comedies like “Hannah And Her Sisters” and “Crimes And Misdemeanors,” the new Woody Allen film was something to be anticipated.
To put it in context: it’s hardly a masterpiece on the level of Allen’s “Annie Hall”, “Manhattan”, “Hannah and Her Sisters”, or “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, or even an exciting change of pace like “Match Point”.
You know that this is not a work of depth as, say, Hannah and Her Sisters had depth, or even Bullets over Broadway.
But it's also the memory of his golden era - Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, for example - that makes him a target for dismissive cinéastes.
Having already plundered London (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and various locations in Spain (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), it was only a matter of time before he found his way to the place that Bogie and Ingrid Bergman would always remember.
Midnight in Paris is like enough to Vicky Cristina Barcelona as to be cousins: both are at heart incredibly sentimental tributes to a particularly gorgeous European city, both of them essentially larks, satisfying little comedies with very little snap or bite - as Allen ages, he seems increasingly less able to marry drama and comedy the way he used to, though I'd defend You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger on that front, and would be rather lonely doing so.
Allen seems to have put a lot more care and thought into his visuals here than he did in his most recent prior film, " You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger ," which seemed to just lurch from one scene to the next.
A charming, whimsical and beautifully shot romantic comedy, and a big rebound from last year’s disappointing “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”, “Midnight in Paris” is one of Allen’s top efforts of the new millennium, and a strong contender for an Academy Award Best Screenplay nod, which would be his 15th such nomination.
Even the movie’s that have won critical attention (like Match Point, Vicki and, in some quarters at least, last year’s underrated You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) haven’t clicked with moviegoers, with few outside of Allen’s die-hard fanbase turning up to see them in theaters.
Few directors have given me more pleasure over the past 40 years than Woody Allen , so it is a great relief to see him emerge after a fallow period of disappointments and disasters with his best film since Everyone Says I Love You in 1996.
46 years ago and in one section of Everyone Says I Love You, but this is the first time he’s given the city the royal treatment.
Wilson is a vast improvement over such dubious ersatz Woodys as Edward Norton (“Everyone Says I Love You,” also set in Paris) Kenneth Branagh, Will Ferrell and John Cusack.
Even more than in Everyone Says I Love You, it’s a valentine of the camembert kind, a nostalgic wonderland that offers up a picture-postcard version of the city (Look!
Radio Days (1987) did that, and so did Everyone Says I Love You (1996).
Simply for it easily being his most enjoyable work since Small Time Crooks and his most lovely since Everyone Says I Love You.
Owen Wilson, against all odds, makes a sensational Allen proxy—instead of impersonating those famous vocal cadences as Kenneth Branagh did in Celebrity (shudder), he leavens the director’s trademark melancholia with his own sunny Texas charm.
John Cusack was fine in “Bullets Over Broadway,” but the usually outstanding Kenneth Branagh was embarrassing in “Celebrity” and Will Ferrell seemed to be sleepwalking through “Melinda And Melinda.”
An amiable performance by Wilson, who doesn’t make the mistake Kenneth Branagh did in “Celebrity” of trying to mimic Allen.
Kenneth Branagh, Celebrity), and instead blends his own trademark surfer/stoner naivete with a shot of Allen-esque anxiousness that plays perfectly for the role.
And it’s far and away his sunniest effort since “Mighty Aphrodite.”
But I have to advise that, if you like this kind of dish, it was done infinitely better in 1988 by Alan Rudolph in a picture called The Moderns .
Some years ago in The Moderns, Alan Rudolph tried to recreate the expatriate Parisian literary scene of the 1920s but ended up with an embarrassingly unconvincing satire.
I think it likely that Allen has also been influenced by Victor Sjöström's silent Swedish masterpiece, The Phantom Carriage, his idol Ingmar Bergman's favourite movie, which centres on a ghostly coach going around town at midnight picking up the dead.
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Rachel McAdams’ natural (and considerable) charm and charisma are a perfect counterpoint to her character, who in her unlikeability actually recalls Billy Zane’s ridiculous cad in Titanic.
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” vs. Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast”?
Lurie has made a fantastic looking movie from the opening shots that establish this environment in a similarly engaging way as Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" before turning ugly.
While Robert Altman shot Paris as the city of dog poop for his curdled " Ready to Wear " back in the day, Allen and cinematographer Darius Khondji (" Stealing Beauty ," "Seven," " My Blueberry Nights ") give us a Paris that's not quite as shiny as that of " Amelie " but looks scrubbed pretty clean nevertheless:Â the way Paris looks sometimes when recollected by those who love it, as it happens.
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Adrien Brody ("The Pianist") gives goofy Salvador Dali, but he's more entertaining obsessing about rhinoceros in a few minutes than Robert Pattinson was in an entire film ("Little Ashes").
Adrien Brody ("The Pianist") gives goofy Salvador Dali, but he's more entertaining obsessing about rhinoceros in a few minutes than Robert Pattinson was in an entire film ("Little Ashes").