We have Beards so we know Movies: Midnight in Paris (2011)
My interest in Woody Allen started with his movies Manhattan Murder Mystery, Deconstructing Harry and Manhattan; i.e. the ones that take place in New York. It was about the same time I got a desire to have a brick wall in my apartment.
His latest movie, Midnight in Paris, is however not set in New York. It’s a romantic comedy-fantasy film about Gil (Owen Wilson) and Inez (Rachel McAdams). They visits the French capital to meet up with Inez parents who are on a business trip.
Gil already makes a lucrative living as a screenwriter in Hollywood, but finds it a bit shallow. He now wants to create greater art with the novel he has started to write. Gil finds a new, and quite spectacular kind of inspiration on the streets of Paris.
As many times before Woody Allen uses the atmosphere of the city as a important part of the story. And he does it very well, I have already started to google “cheap flights to Paris”. If I just can get there I will start to write that novel that we all, somewhere deep down, have a dream of writing. What the plot is? Never mind. Paris first, plot later.
However, enough about my future.
Owen Wilson, who plays Gil in the film, is a great but also brave casting choice. He got this unique quality that I’m always looking for in a Woody Allen movie. The “neurotic-nervous-close-to-a-panic-attack-Woody-Allen” quality. The script is weird and creative that no other director would get the money to make. But regardless of the weirdness, it’s already the highest grossing Woody Allen film to date. Impressive.
But as I still long for a brick wall in my apartment, I want Woody Allen to return to New York. It is were he’s at his best.
And even though Midnight in Paris has received a 8.1 rating on IMDb, making it his highest rated movie since Annie Hall, I don’t find it that good.
A 7.2 rating would have sufficed.
More “We have Beards so we know Movies!” Reviews
Catfish
Green Lantern
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Complete Death Wish Collection 1-5
Transformers: Dark of the Moon 3D
Super 8
Melancholia
Insidious
Red Riding Hood
The Hangover Part II
Fast Five
Thor 3D
Tron: Legacy
Related articles
- Midnight in Paris (2011) (myfilmviews.wordpress.com)
- Midnight In Paris (alittlebitofthisandalittlebitofthat.wordpress.com)
- Late to the Kafkaesque lovemaking! A review of Annie Hall (latetothemovies.com)
- I Love Paris in the Fall. (thefilmexperience.net)
