Enjoyable Escape

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2016)

I actually really enjoyed this movie. I found it to be enlightening and it was also the first movie I actually really disliked Rachel McAdams. She has never played a bitch so impeccably before and I was very impressed because I didn't know she was able to do it so convincingly. I had read the book A Moveable Feast just before seeing the movie and I think it really made the movie that much more enjoyable, even though I didn't enjoy the book. It made the references to Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein really come to life. It made me able to see them in a way I probably wouldn't have been able to had I not read the book, especially so close to seeing the movie. It is a movie that really encompasses the theme of "the grass is greener" because characters are always talking about how much better the past was and how they want to go there. Owen Wilson is one of them and thinks 1920's is the "Golden Age" and is able to actually go there, but when he gets there another character from the 20's wants to go to the 1890's because she thinks that's the "Golden Age". When they got to the 1890's the characters there were saying how they wished they could go to the Renaissance because that's the "Golden Age". They all want to keep going back further truly believing it was better than what they currently had. In reality, going into the past was their way to escape the present and whatever made them unhappy there. The past is easier because we know what we are getting because it's already happened. The present and the future either are happening or haven't happened yet and there is so much beyond our control that it is terrifying and overwhelming sometimes. There are other times, though, that it can be exciting and incredible if we do it right and just let it.