Midnight In Paris – A Critical Review

Woody Allen's cinematic tribute to the age of Dali and Hemingway revolves around a

family that travels to Paris for business and a young couple to be married and their life-changing

experiences in the City of Lights. This review aims to outline the theme, setting, characterization

and symbolism of Allen’s latest cinematic release.

The setting of the movie is like a daydream for American Literature students. Owen

Wilson is playing Allen's second self, as the laidback Gil, a bumbling and profoundly successful

mediocre screenwriter who still dreams about the day when he writes a great novel and joins the

pantheon of American writers.

Somewhat clueless, Gil is smart and seeking wisdom and truth in another era, which is

the usual type of character Allen plays in his movies. By overlapping the materialistic cravings

and lack of cultural interests of Gil’s fiancée and her parents, Allen highlights some of the main

difference in the values of French and the American cultures. Americans glorify commerce and

the French adore culture.

Midnight in Paris is Allen’s parallel to his The Purple Rose of Cairo movie, a whimsical

time machine that allows him to bask in joyfully in the artistic Paris of his dreams. Gil would

love to live in Paris, but Inez, his one-dimensional fiancé, is the typical upper-class stiff woman

that would only live in the suburbs, like her parents. One night, as he’s walking around by

himself he gets lost and as church bell tolls midnight, an old car pulls up filled with partygoers

who invite him to join their party. A few minutes later he finds himself in the same room with

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and finds Cole Porter playing the piano. Afterwards they all go down

to meet Hemingway who pledges to show Gil’s manuscript to Gertrude Stein.

After trying unsuccessfully to bring Inez along through the time portal, Gil keeps coming

back to the 1920s every night and receives good advice from Stein about his book and becomes

genuinely attracted to Adriana (Marion Cotillard), the former mistress of Braque and Modigliani

who is now Picasso’s muse. And so begins a flight of fancy adventure for Gil who comes back

and forth into the realm of his literary idols and receives a measure of approval from them, not to

mention the encounters with such titans as Dali, Picasso, Man Ray, T.S. Eliot and filmmaker

Luis Bunuel.

Allen makes no effort to explain this magical time-traveling theme, he just moves

forward as he did in his 1985 movie The Purple Rose of Cairo. We don’t have to decide if what

happens is real or not, it’s not important. The movie is a graceful doodle in which Gil is swept

away by the old car night after night and finds himself deep into the Jazz Age and all its idols.

His story was going to be about a man who ran a souvenir shop and here we find him in the time

and place he is most longing for. The entire theme of the movie revolves around a man with a

strong tendency to draw back into the past instead of confronting the present.

The magic unfolds without any digital effects and Allen doesn’t suggest that Gil is even

dreaming or fantasizing. He is just there, in the past with all the great artists, depicted not as they

actually were, but as Gil wants them to be. It’s his and Allen’s adventure, as admirers of great

musicians and writers, who are trying to revive the pantheon.

It is ultimately a symbolic story of about a young man's love for Paris and the illusion

people have that an existence different from theirs would be more valuable. It is a well crafted

allegory about romance, pleasures and lessons that come with worshipping another artist's era.

Like most Allen’s movies, Midnight in Paris comes with a moral lesson, this time slightly self-

depreciating: everybody wishes they lived in another time and place, even those in that other age.

This is painstaking truth because we know from Allen’s references that he is lost over and over

again in dreams of the past.

Although it’s all done artfully in old Allen one-liner style, the format however allows the

writer, who has never hided his praise for his heroes, to reflect on how people have always

idealized earlier times in history and cultural movements, as if they were intrinsically superior to

whatever there was at the time. “Surely you don’t think the ‘20s is a Golden Age?” Adriana asks

Gil, who has always thought so. “It’s the present. It’s dull,” she says.

Midnight in Paris is Allen's 41st movie, written and gracefully directed by him. Most

critics consider him a genuine treasure of world cinema. This is nothing to argue about, either

you agree with it or not. Film critic Matt Goldberg admits that Midnight in Paris is one of

Allen’s best movies in the last decade and one of those rare comedies where he doesn’t include a

neurotic character, but allows the movie to unfold in a funny and thoughtful way. New York

Times critic A. O. Scott finds Allen’s movie “charming” and “marvelously romantic” and also

believes Allen used some of his gracious silliness, which may have, to a certain extent,

compensated for the shadowy expressions of romanticism.

What's simply irresistible about Midnight in Paris, about its buoyant platitudes along

with its facile insights, is the candid playfulness of the entire story. Just as Luis Bunuel did,

Woody Allen is becoming friskier with time. His latest venture is definitely a place where all the

weeds have cut out. Everything is rosy.

Works cited:

Goldberg, Matt. "MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Review." Collider. 10 June 2011. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.

<http://collider.com/midnight-in-paris-review/95785/>.

Scott, A. O. "‘Midnight in Paris,’ by Woody Allen, With Owen Wilson - Review -

NYTimes.com." Movie Reviews, Showtimes and Trailers - Movies - New York Times - The New

York Times. 19 May 2011. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.

<http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/movies/midnight-in-paris-by-woody-allen-with-owen-

wilson-review.html>.