What can You Say about Allen

Rating: 9/10 (23 May 2012)

He's brilliant, Woody Allen. He can have so many things going on and make you look at what's wrong with all of them and at the same time be smart about it, without getting too condescending. Midnight in Paris is basically telling you 'come to terms with what you really want, stop the denial, stop fighting what is.' Owen Wilson's character wants to live in Paris. He finally does that.
Let's take a look at the Life Lesson 101 this film is dealing with:
1. Would it matter what time period you lived in? Allen is saying no, as Joel O'Steen says, 'Happiness is a choice', almost to the eye of the beholder. Where ever you go you'll be happy or unhappy, the glass is full/half full concept.
2. If Rachel McAdams' character had some awareness, she would have realized that Wilson's character was 10 times more brilliant than her one dimensional 'so called' intellectual friend Paul. This is the case with most people unfortunately in relationships, friendships, and families.
3. In order to have new growth, you have to let go of what's dead, in this movie's case Wilson's character lets go of McAdams' character and the United States, and the new growth that comes to him is living in Paris, writing a better book and meeting a new girl who is nice, who doesn't mind walking in the rain and who, I might add, doesn't have a stick up her butt like McAdams' character and her parents.
4. You can learn anything about life from anything and anybody if you're open to it. I believe Woody Allen is saying Read some freaking books because you'll learn a lot about yourself and the great riddles of life through some great books such as books by Hemingway, Eliot, and so forth and so on.
This is definitely a movie worth watching for the viewer, to almost find out and to get down to the nitty gritty about what we really want for our individual selves in this life. Not what we think we should do, or what we think is the right thing to do, or what is safe, but just what we really want without worrying about what anyone else will think of us. A great movie to see!