Midnight In Paris (Spain/US ’11)
First at the Capitol with Cory, then again during my first ever visit to the Lido “Lounge”.
Man, it’s difficult not to fall in love with this film’s magic, at least for a dude like me who has shared similar fantasies and obsessed over certain times and places in the past. Woody (via Owen Wilson) throws himself unapologetically head-first into this daydream, cramming his every fancy into 90-odd minutes. I was happy to get swept up in it all, there were so many characters and references whizzing past my head that it didn’t take me long to queue for another ticket. I love getting to pat myself on the back for getting the joke – the confusion over El ángel exterminador (aka The Exterminating Angel)(Mex ’62) made me warm – and I’m sure that you could pick up on new stuff every time you watched it. There was also casual time-jumps throughout, the camera would linger on folks I was probably s’posed to recognise, there were things mentioned that the audience wasn’t shown…all hinting at a bigger world. I’m always excited by the feeling that I’m just getting a glimpse at a fully-realised universe.
The movie was loveable from word go; we kick off with three minutes of Sidney Bechet’s incredible Si tu vois ma mère playing overtop wordless shots of Paris, then straight into set-up dialogue while we stare at static white-on-black credits…audacious, but I was instantly in love with its cheekiness. The enjoyable cringe that was the long take of Michael Sheen (in a George Lucas beard, if I’m not mistaken) lecturing on Versailles like a dick, Owen Wilson’s face as everything silently dawns on him, exciting little turns like Alison Pill’s Zelda…
Unfortunately, I also found it rather overcooked. It was unnecessary having Djuna at the dance, not everybody needed to be somebody. There was so many folks that a lot of them were strictly caricatures (every word Ernest said was forced, though I s’pose that’s exactly why I loved Adrien Brody’s scene). Woody, Gil and Owen were painfully clear as they explained their way step by step through the lesson we were to learn, gettin’ all educational an’ shit with zero subtlety. It’s like they’ve tried to keep the main thread plain and obvious for the lowest common denominator out in the audience, then dot all the other shit in the background, which should’ve worked. But they’ve gone too blatant with the plot so that half the movie is screaming at you while the other half keeps its mouth shut for the more learned viewer. Leads lecture one another in pointed little monologues and nothing is left to the imagination; yet the place is littered with throwaway genius that is far from forceful…
There were other things in it that seemed a little slack for such a seasoned writer/director too; I haven’t seen Owen Wilson this good in ages, but there was still too much Woody in his performance (keep your fucking hands still!) and there was some dopey shit during the daytime, like the wacky stolen earrings segment.
But I’m still coming out of this a fan. There is a lot of beautiful to escape into here.
