Midnight in Paris

Spoiler alert-o-meter: A few mild spoilers ahead.

Light as a soufflé, as insignificant as a chocolate truffle. Yet with a tasty cream in the middle. Woody Allen’s new Midnight in Paris goes down easy and leaves no residue. It’s low-carb movie making but without the guilt of explosions, full frontal nudity, and fart jokes.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter who is on a trip to Paris with his self-absorbed fiancé, Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her self-absorbed parents. All Gil wants is to walk around Paris and take in the sights and sounds, and he doesn’t care if it’s raining. He has a romantic view of Paris, one based on the bygone cultural era of the 1920s. If he could he would give up Los Angeles for Paris and finish his novel. Inez for her part appears smitten by a cultural blowhard (played with pitch perfect condescension by Michael Sheen) as she follows him around the museums soaking in his views on art.

Watching the scenes of McAdams’ Inez, preening around as a bottle blond in designer jeans and heels complaining about everything and Wilson’s Gil feeling out of place, it’s impossible to understand what these two are doing together. We never see them have any fun, so unsuited do they seem as a couple. And the parents don’t try to hide their contempt for him.

Gil, more partial to walks around the wet streets of Paris at night than going dancing, is beckoned into a magic taxi whose passengers are none other than F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, along with other 1920s denizens.  They take him to a nightclub where they drink and schmooze. Gil, an obvious anachronism in his chinos and Oxford, mingles with the crowd with a bemused, accepting smile as he enjoys the music and the talk from his favorite time in history.

The movie continues along this tract: following Gil both as he travels to Paris of the 1920s and as he navigates contemporary Paris with his wife and in-laws. Luckily Allen realizes the real story here is not Gil and Inez but Gil’s feelings of being a misunderstood man out of time, and turns Midnight in Paris into a gentle time travel pastiche. Each night at midnight, Gil climbs into his time travel taxi coach and is whisked back in time, falling inexorably under the spell of the 1920s Paris he’s always longed for.

He meets Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stroll, spouting dialogue that sounds like Hemingway’s prose) and immediately implores him to read his novel in progress (wouldn’t you?). Hem declines but directs Gil to Gertrude Stein (a well-cast Kathy Bates), who agrees to help him out, right after she critiques Picasso’s latest piece.

Like a fairy tale character, Gil has to return to his hotel room and his shrill wife before dawn. Rachel McAdam’s has never looked sexier, so we are left to assume Gil’s attraction to her is mostly on a physical level. But McAdams is only given one note to play and any scenes with her become tedious. Owen Wilson brings a fine laid back, but wide-eyed openness to Gil. I’d almost call him an innocent, but whenever Allen lingers his close ups on Wilson’s face we see he’s no longer youthful, rubbery Dignan from Bottle Rocket. He’s aged and he’s lived (and attempted suicide), and this world weary experience works well for the movie.

Gil accepts all of this time travel as if it were his destiny. He mixes naturally with whomever he meets. Artists (Picasso, Man Ray, Salvador Dalí), filmmakers (Luis Buñuel), musicians (Noel Coward, Joséphine Baker), and of course the writers (along with Hem and F Scott we run into T.S. Eliot and Djuna Barnes). Gil meets Picasso’s mistress and muse, Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard. This lovely woman of the 1920s is perfect for him. Much of the fun and heart of Midnight in Paris stems from how Gil comes to realize that pining for some ultimately unattainable time and woman can never work out.

The movie is derailed briefly in the contemporary scenes due to a sit-com plot point device that was stale back on Three’s Company when Jack Tripper pretended to be gay to trick his landlord into letting him live with Chrissy. But that distraction doesn’t last long, and is more than redeemed by scenes such as when Gil meets the surrealists Luis Buñuel and Dalí (a playful Adrien Brody) Gil gives Buñuel one of his themes that will eventually be the basis of his classic The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Midnight in Paris is the first Woody Allen movie I’ve seen in the theater since Manhattan Murder Mystery. While Paris doesn’t always work, it is refreshing to still walk into a Woody Allen movie, see those familiar white titles against the black background, hear some jazz on the soundtrack, and watch a new set of actors play out Allen’s fantasies.

Actors always talk about how, when he contacts them to be in his movies, they jump at the chance. Even though Allen hasn’t made a great movie since the mid-eighties. And some would argue earlier. He’ll never make Annie Hall Again or Manhattan II. He has no interest in it, and it wouldn’t be very good if he tried. What we do have is an iconoclast filmmaker who doesn’t know about trends, makes the exact movie he wants to make (at this point, only in Europe, with European financing), with whomever he wants.

Midnight in Paris is a hoot, a gentle bon bon of a movie that asks that you don’t take it too seriously and to enjoy its simple story. If you see one movie this year that makes a Djuna Barnes cultural reference, it should be Midnight  in Paris.



Stats:

Theater location: Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, Monday, May 30th, 12:00 pm. Price: 8.00. Viewed with Liz. Snack: Mixed nuts, Diet Coke.

Coming Attractions:

Page One: Inside the New York Times. Documentary about the New York Times. Highlighting the changes over the past few years, to newspapers and to journalism in general.

Tree of Life. Whatever this movie ends up being about, it will look gorgeous. Brad Pitt plays a father in some scenes, and later, after, Sean Penn plays one of his grown up sons. There's shots of oceans and sun and rain and other elements.

Morning Glory

Spoiler alert-o-meter: Medium spoiler alerts ahead. Safe for: All ages.

Morning Glory is old-fashioned in an ‘80s kind of way. Reminiscent of ‘movies like Working Girl, Broadcast News, and even Soapdish in its behind-the-scenes depiction of live TV. It never takes itself very seriously, which is good because, if there’s a message here it’s that news should entertain as well as inform. Well, at least morning news.

Rachel McAdams plays Becky, a perky, hyper, workaholic producer at a popular morning news show in New Jersey. She’s good at her job, and her co-workers who adore her think she’s being groomed for a promotion. Instead, she’s fired. But (since this is not real life) it's not long before she picks up another job in Manhattan at a low-ranked morning news show. It’s a sad little program with grand dame Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) who’s been co-anchor at the station for years. She looks like Diane Sawyer crossed with Martha Stewart.

It’s no secret that Becky is good at producing, and early on she gets to show everyone at the station how she can take control. She helps win over her new blasé co-workers by firing Colleen’s co-anchor, a smarmy douchebag played by Modern Family’s Ty Burrell. That leaves a vacancy next to Colleen. Through sleight-of plot manipulation, Becky strong-arms Harrison Ford’s Mike Pomeroy (one of those iconic newsmen who used to actually report the news) to take the job because he's languishing at the station without much to do until his contract runs out.

So, there’s the set up. It’s fill-in-the-blanks, with scenes of chilly Mike Pomeroy doing his best to anchor the news part of this morning show, while Colleen handles the fluffy stuff. Think Tom Brokaw slumming it on Good Morning America. Pomeroy's a pain to work with, so the movie gets a lot of mileage out of showing Becky trying to deal with him, and get him to loosen up and play along.

Ford plays Pomeroy as a self-centered asshole so our sympathies and allegiances are clearly aligned behind the Becky character. Although, deep down I wanted Indiana Jones, Jack Ryan, Rick Deckard, and Han Solo to do what ever the hell he wanted and have a happy ending.

Jeff Goldblum (who looks better here than I’ve ever seen him, and if he’s aging, it’s a backwards process) plays a bad-ish suit who, because of the show’s low ratings, gives Becky six weeks to hit the right viewership threshold or he’s canceling the show. Since Becky has no life (although Patrick Wilson gives it a shot playing apparently the hottest single guy working in broadcast TV), she devotes all her time to get the ratings back up. Predictably, this includes stunts for Colleen and a hapless but game weatherman. The execution of these scenes works well, and the infusion of new extreme-morning show tactics is a hoot to watch.

I’ll stop there and won’t ruin the ending (which, please, you already know). So, what makes this movie worth seeing? The early scenes are a bit dreary, with Rachel acting manic and obnoxious, making Becky a character I don't want to spend two hours with, but after about fifteen minutes the tone evens out, Becky grows on me, and we’ve got a heroine to root for, bad guys (or not-so-nice folks) to sort-of dislike, and an almost-love interest in Patrick Wilson who doesn't have much to do, but is one of the more pleasant characters in the film.

The film is boosted from predictable to pretty good due to the main actors. Harrison Ford plays off his serious movie actor schtick, so when his heart finally melts just enough to suit the story, it works. Diane Keaton is nice in this very slight role. It’s the type of character whose success and believability depend on the actor, and it's good to see her playing a strong woman not afraid to take risks and look silly on camera. Rachel McAdams plays Becky as an ambitious young suit, infusing the character with a blind belief in what she's doing that allows us to easily empathize with her. If she has a flaw it's that she works too hard.

Ultimately, Morning Glory is not the story of how Becky learns about bigtime TV, she already knows that. It's about how she rises to the occasion, gets rid of those hick bangs, and saves the show. In today's movies about working girls, the love interest takes a back seat to job success. Does she end up with Patrick Wilson? It's implied. But her life is her work, and according to this movie, she's okay with that.

Stats:

Theater location: Lowell Showcase, Tuesday night bargain show. Price $6.00. Viewed with Liz.
Snacks—N/A

Coming Attractions:

The Next 3 Days. Paul Haggis directs what looks like a pretty preposterous movie, about a woman convicted of murder and her husband who tries to break her out of prison. Actually, sounds good on paper, but it looks like a slog with Russell Crowe as the husband doing some stupid stuff to spring the wife. Is she innocent? Why is it called the Next 3 Days? Is that how long it takes a movie to tank?

The Tourist. Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie. “Revolves around Frank, an American tourist visiting Italy to mend a broken heart. Elise is an extraordinary woman who deliberately crosses his path.” Is she a spy? Is he? Nothing is as it seems…

The Fighter. Shot in Lowell, so of course I’ll be seeing this one. About Mickey Ward, the boxer from our mean streets. Story seems very conventional, following the sports underdog template: athlete has potential, has personal problems, loses his first shot, overcomes adversity, gets a second shot. On the plus side it's directed by David O. Russell.

Love and Other Drugs. Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway. It’s a rom-com. Liz said, “It’s weird to see Jake Gyllenhaal smile.” He plays a slick salesman who falls for a beautiful free spirit. So, maybe we’re not supposed to trust his smile.

No Strings Attached. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher play friends who end up sleeping together. And, I'm guessing from the plot twists exposed in the trailer, that he falls for her and she just wants the sex because she has a busy life as a doctor and doesn't have time for more? Could be cute, since the stars are both cute. Not sure Portman's made a rom-com like this. Due out next year.