Midnight in Paris

“Midnight in Paris” is the newest addition to the Woody Allen movie catalog. I will start out by saying this is the best Allen movie I have seen in a very long time. If you decide to see this one, it will not let you down.

The plot summary of this film is you are presented with a family come to Paris for a combination business trip for the parents (played by Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller) and vacation for their daughter (Rachel McAdams) and her disillusioned-screenwriter fiancé (Owen Wilson). The story centers on Owen Wilson and his late night walks around the city where he discovers a timewarp. When he gets into a circa 1920s car, he is transported back to the Paris at the height of the 1920 Expatriot era. He meets an all-star cast of authors and painters from the era who help him with his book. Running concurrently with this story McAdam's reconnects with a pretentious college friend (Michael Sheen) who is obviously much more into culture and the history of Paris than Wilson's character.

This movie is very typical of Woody Allen. You have the hypochondriac-narcissist (Wilson), self-center money hungry girl (McAdams) and crazy conservatives bent on destroying everyone’s fun (Kennedy and Fuller). This goes along with the plethora of characters that just like to hear themselves talk (Sheen). However, if I had to catagorize it in the cannon I would say it mixes some of the comedy of "Scoop" with the seriousness of "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona".

I like how Allen uses time travel to parallel what is going on in Wilson's life. Throughout the movie, Wilson makes the argument that he is not of "this time".  Given the circumstances and the people that surround him, he does feel out of place.  I am sure its a feeling that many of us can understand at various points in our lives. In this case, it was Allen's way of explaining that everything was wrong in Owen's life and he needed to make the shift to fully (or step back literally) to see it.


Overall, I give this one 4 out of 5 stars. The one dimensional aspect of the characters prevents me from giving it a full 5. Well worth seeing in the theatre!

-Jacqui

P.S. this will be the last review until Potter!

"Beginners"

“Beginners” is a movie about a son learning about his father and in the process fixing himself. Starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, Mike Mill’s (Writer/Director) presents semi-autobiographical look at his own relationship with his father. 

The movie tells the story of Oliver (McGregor) and his father Hal (Plummer). Following the death of Oliver’s mother, Hal comes out of the closet, takes a younger lover and is then diagnosed with terminal cancer. The movie is told is a series of Vignettes and flashbacks showing all the secrets that had been kept in Oliver’s family even before he was born.

Good points. The acting was great. McGregor and Plummer are a great team.  The writing was witty and the banter between the two was what you would expect in a movie like this one with complexities in personality and character. The dog was also hilarious adding comic relief and commentary to the story.

Cinematically, it was hard to follow at times. While movies that don’t go in chronological order is nothing new, I found the organization of the vignettes too disorganized.  I found myself wondering where this part fits in chronology.  Another annoying aspect was the use of truly stock characters.  Goran Visnjic’s “Andy” (Hal’s young lover) is an example of the uncomfortable gay man who still thinks everyone dislikes him because he’s gay. While his character added a something because you saw the happiness he added to Hal; the refrain of  “you don’t like me because I’m gay,” got old quickly.

Overall, this movie was very good. Good but heavy. This is not a movie to watch when you relaxing is your overall goal. Getting to the overall lesson of the movie is a journey worth taking. 

I give it 3 out 5 stars.

-Jacqui