Shallow, one-dimensional and superficial...

Rating: 1/10 (10 October 2011)

Going into this movie I had not seen its trailer nor had any idea about plot, actors or anything else. The only thing I knew was that this was a Woody Allen movie and everybody liked it. I do like some of the Allen's so I let my wife drag me into the movie theater (in defiance of my general observation that what everyone likes is usually not good). The movie starts with a montage of views of Paris under a nice music. All is nice and shiny. However Allen does not forget to make some money from slipping several brands into our subconscious. This trick was repeated while showing us "Chopard" (if I remember correctly) as a brand preferred by bride-to-be for her engagement ring in an out-of-context and inconsequential scene. I feel cheated when I pay for a movie and have to watch commercials instead. Sinicism of this is aggravated when you consider how left-wing a director of this movie purports himself to be. But you can soothe yourself with the fact that everybody needs to make money, and so does old Uncle Woody, and wait for the movie to really start, at least that's what I did. But first introduction to characters was terrible. All of them so one dimensional, so plain, so caricature, so shallow! Later in the movie Hemingway says that a book cannot be bad if it is about a real story, but somehow Allen missed this point. (Alongside the movie he makes a lot of points which his movie fails to take into consideration). There are no such one-dimensional people in the real world! The living would be very easy, and there would be no need to psychology at all. All characters are instantaneously divided into good and bad. I only kept wondering how Gil and Inez could ever get together, let alone be ready to get married? When talking about his fiancé Gil could only remember that their common thing is that they both like Indian puri. How unrealistic is this situation? So, bored with his current affairs, Gil starts wondering in midnight Paris. At this point I was praying for Woody Allen to show some creativity and not turn this into a standard plot of a couple traveling to a new location where one of them meets a new love of his life and understands how wrong he was. There are at least million of movies shot with that plot. May be Allen could have done this movie without a second girl? I would appreciate such a twist. But I was not surprised, everything was as trivial as it can get. Gil travels to the past to meet caricatures of great people. A total mockery of these great men, and without evident reason. I will not stop on how superficial these characters are, I think shallowness is a theme of this movie. The only bright side is Marian Cotillard, Gil's new love. She is very pretty and her acting is very good. Eventually, after his time travels Gil understands that it is better to live in the present reality, firmly standing on the ground, rather than to fly in the clouds longing for "good old times". So he returns to present time, and guess what he does? – He stays in Paris. Like if Paris being a magical city, somewhat different than others is not a same type of myth, as 1920's being better than 2000's