Midnight in Paris Movie Review

(source: Sony Pictures)

Midnight in Paris is one of the stranger movies I’ve seen this year. It is a science fiction, iconoclastic satire of the American upper classes, as well as the “divine” artists of yesterday. Woody Allen’s movies have always been for a specific crowd, but what crowd could enjoy this movie? Are Americans too stupid (myself included) to get the jokes? I’ll get to that…

The movie is is about a couple, Gil and Inez, who go to Paris and are supposedly in love. The movie flows as a Woody movie might — conversations about art and music; what is beautiful about Paris and what is not. I smirked at their friend Paul, who is one of those stuffy, overly sophisticated (and dare I say caucasian) douchebags. Anyone who has gone to art school knows at least one. Allen is taking a shot at his own movies and his own social class or at least he should be. Paul is later referred to as pedantic. Do most people even know what that means?

Gil ends up strolling into the 1920s (yes, time travel) and begins to have conversations and parties with Hemingway, Stein, Dali, Fitzgerald, Bunuel, Picasso, the list goes on.

Gil even falls for Picasso’s girlfriend Adriana – existential ideas are exchanged about art, love, etc. Where the movie really shines is its satire of some of the most beloved artists of all time. For example, take a sequence with Luis Bunuel (one of Guillermo Del Toro’s favorite filmmakers) Gil walks up to him saying he should have a movie where people show up to a party and they can’t leave. Bunuel says he doesn’t get it, why don’t they just leave? Gil says, “They just can’t”. Bunuel still doesn’t get it. I laughed, I had at least seen the movie they were talking about. It is referencing an obscure movie called The Exterminating Angel, I’d taken it out of the library back at school, but had to look up the name. Am I being pedantic?

This is the problem with the movie. I don’t really know if America is familiar enough with the subject matter to enjoy it like Allen intended. I got around 50% of the jokes. How much will everyone else get? I literally can’t imagine how angry a movie like this would make my father. He’s an engineer and a very bright man, but is indifferent to the cultural intricacies of art, music, literature, and poetry. It makes you wonder what the Paul character was all about and if Allen was, indeed, commenting on his own movies.

Moreover, maybe my favorite part was when Gil finally says what Allen has always wanted about Paris, and all the cities he has obsessed over, discussing how no matter how hard an artist tried they could never replicate the artistic excellence of a beautiful city.

The movie was very good, but I wouldn’t recommend it to many people. Also, the ending was kind of abrupt and not totally satisfying considering the totally fresh and bizarre Vonnegutesque plot device. I have a feeling that Pauls all over the country are going to see it right now — claiming they love the movie — and they don’t realize the jokes on them…or maybe it’s on me?

-Collin