First things first: I probably wouldn’t fork over a first-run-full-ticket-price’s (“F.R.F.T.P.”) worth of my hard earned cash-money to see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris in theaters again; however, I would gladly accompany someone else if they invited me along and offered to pay my way; and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again at a second-run theater, especially if said second-run theater was a brew’n’view; I would also consider paying money to watch it again On Demand or to get it from a Red Box; and yes, I’d Netflix it. In short, I loved Midnight in Paris, I just don’t think that enough would be added to my love by a second viewing on the big screen in order to justify forking over another wad of my hard earned cash-money.
Midnight in Paris’ tone reminds yours truly of Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo--a film that almost nobody under the age of 30 seems to know of or appreciate--in that it’s a both incredibly fun and quite poignant meditation on the difficult-importance of not running away from ones reality, whatever it may be, and learning to live and love ones present.
A great deal of the fun in Midnight in Paris is to be had amongst the wonderfully colorful characters that populate Woody’s vision of Paris in the 1920s: Zelda Fitzgerald’s (Alison Pill) silly-drunkenness, Erest Hemmingway’s (Corey Stoll), well, courage (“Who wants to fight?!?”), Salvidor Dali’s (Adrien Brody) twisted little mustache, not to mention Owen Wilson’s time-traveling Gil Pender, whose consistently bemused aw-shucks, kid-in-the-literary-candy-store performance was amazingly difficult for yours truly to not identify with (the first time he meets Stoll’s Hemingway and is like “Really!?!” I let out a little school-girl giggle of joy). Now, if you’re one of those people who says things like “I’ve never once departed from reality and/or fantasized about anything, let alone meeting my literary/artistic heroes!” then you should probably avoid Midnight in Paris--a film in which Wilson's Pender miraculously time-travels and gets to meet all his literary and artistic heroes while visiting what he thinks of as the golden age of Paris--and/or stop wasting your money/time at the movies.
Midnight in Paris’s poignancy comes from it’s almost (again, see The Purple Rose of Cairo) un-Woody like message at the end, in which (spoiler alert!) Wilson’s Pender decides to not stay in the Paris of the 1920s, instead choosing the Paris of the present (and saying “peace” to his fiance, the fantastically b*itchy Rachel McAdam’s, and his life as a Hollywood-hack). Pender’s realization is primarily facilitated through his romantic relationship with Marion Cotillard’s Adriana, who, living in the 1920s Paris of Wilson’s fantasy (and dating Picasso and Hemmingway before Wilson's Pender, yeah...), herself fantasizes about a time before her own time, wanting to live in the Paris of the 1890s instead of the 1920s. Pender eventually concludes that Adriana’s crazy for not realizing how great she’s got it, and through his perception of her craziness himself realizes that the answer to the adage “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” is not that we come up with crazy-schemes and fantasy-scenarios to get back whatever it is we’ve lost, but, rather, that we learn to appreciate the lives and times we have, while we're lucky enough to have them.
Cheers to the movies!
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