A Cinematic Tête-à-tête with Surrealism, Art, and Literary Figures

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2016)

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After a decade of unsatisfying movie plots and bad reviews, Woody Allen is back in shape again since his critically acclaimed movies, "Annie Hall" and "Bullets over Broadway". He opens his latest film, "Midnight in Paris" with a three-minute video of countless montages of Parisian places with a dreamy soundtrack as the backdrop. As an overview, the movie is a soothing yet ambivalent view of nostalgia. Allen's perfectly crafted script hits all of the right notes and his direction is superb. The film is essentially a love letter to the richness of Paris' culture- past, present and perhaps even in the future. I watched the film as a movie recommendation of an Art page I encountered online a year ago. Much to my surprise, it became one of my all-time favorite movies.
The movie revolves around Gil, an unshakable romantic who intends to pursue a career as a novelist, with Paris being his ideal writing station. It seems that the only thing holding him back is the insistence of his dreary, closed-minded fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her snobby, domineering parents (Kurt Fuller and Mimmi Kennedy) who force him to continue writing profitable Hollywood film scripts and eventually live in Malibu, California after the wedding. As he was roaming the Parisian streets, lost at midnight, along the Seine, Gil is offered a lift in what he assumes is a beautifully restored antique Peugeot. He hops in and finds himself in a party being thrown for Jean Cocteau, the other attendees of which include literary giants Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, musicians Josephine Baker and Cole Porter. It does not take him long to realize that he has been sent back in time to his favorite era, the roaring 20's. He is particularly dazed when he meets Ernest Hemingway, who is as most people would picture him: virile, and a heavy drinker.
Gil asks Hemingway the biggest favor- to critique his novel but recommends Gertrude Stein as the editor. The next few nights find him waiting at the same set of steps for the same Peugeot to pick him up. Night after night he meets more members of the Lost Generation: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T. S. Elliot and the list goes on. However, what really draws him back, night after night, to the detriment of his relationship with fiancé Inez and her parents, is Picasso's mistress, Adriana. When Stein finished reviewing Gil's novel, which revolves around a man who works for a nostalgia shop, she said a particular line that struck him; "the artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence." He realizes that he is in a constant state of perpetual denial of the present. He clings to a fallacy called 'Golden-Age Thinking', insisting that things were always better before and wished he lived in that era.
The acting, dialogue, and the setting was on point. Even the soundtrack adds more sensation and feeling of Paris. I could definitely see Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Salvador Dalí in the actors who played them. Because of the acting and the dialogue, I felt a connection with Gil: I, too, wanted to live in the past because things were simpler back then. The comedy helped to make the movie less serious and more enjoyable to watch. Without the comedy, the movie would have been very plain. Most of the time, the plot was not predictable. The movie might have been better if there was more focus on Gil's past experiences and how he had a relationship with Inez, who is clearly his opposite. I also consider the ending as a cliffhanger. Maybe Allen intentionally left us hanging to contemplate about what happened to Adriana after the bitter ending of her short affair with Gil.
Overall, Midnight in Paris is a perfect blending of historic non- fiction and surrealism. Therefore, there seems to be not much of a plot. What is the main point of this movie? It is possible that Gil can be a reflection of our nostalgic selves. We think that the present moment is not our "Golden age", therefore blocking and distorting the nature of the present reality. As a resolution, he decides that he can no longer live in the past - literally or figuratively - and decides to make the most of his life in the present, even if is unsatisfactory in many ways.
This is really a wonderful film about the dangers of idealizing to such an extent that it affects our life in the present. The magic and the realism, both requiring hard work from the protagonist, lead to surprising understanding of human nature, the delusion of nostalgia and Paris, and hope for a present that brings love and inspiration.