Midnight in Paris

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🎙️ EPISODE 300: 01.24.2021 *Review starts @ ~ 3:40:02 Woody Allen’s Bogus Journey In comedies, utilizing suspension of disbelief is fine. You can introduce any type of science fiction element within a comedy and get away with it as long as you use the trope consistently and, most importantly: the movie is funny. So that in Woody Allen's latest film, Owen Wilson is a time-traveler who interacts with famous literary personalities and artists (mostly caricatures of Americans living in 1920s France like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) is totally fine. It is actually even more fine because Allen never attempts to explain, at any time, HOW any of this is happening. Why bother. Some people might really dislike Midnight in Paris because of this element, but it's hardly the reason why Midnight in Paris is horrible.

It's horrible because the film's central conflict is flawed from start to finish: Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, who are engaged to be married, are in fact not very compatible, have nothing in common and have no onscreen chemistry. There is a lot of shit in between–like Adrian Brody pretending to be Salvador Dali and saying "rhinoceros" a lot–but basically that is the plot: an engaged couple coming to terms with the fact that they are too dissimilar and should not be getting married, a fact the audience gleans from the word go.

McAdams is a stuck-up, boring, do-nothing brat. Wilson is a nostalgic, somewhat unhappy but down-to-earth screenwriter who wants to write a novel. So of course they are engaged and living off her parents’ money. If you want to use a dreamworld to represent something real and meaningful in actual life, the thing in actual life should probably be better and have more depth than whatever the hell is happening here each time Owen Wilson tags along with Rachel McAdams and her posse doing one of exactly three things: eating at expensive restaurants, antiquing, or listening to the blowhard she is having an affair with talk about art history, in what is described as a "pedantic" manner by at least two minor characters. Talk about pedantic! Jesus christ, with all this going on, it's amazing Woody Allen was able to sneak in a few tea party jokes. But he was! So topical, that Woody Allen. The tea party does suck! (Ed. Note: still can’t believe this is actually in the movie, but alas, I have to trust my memory.)

It's not that the sci-fi elements stringing this movie together aren't lazy either (Owens disappears every night at exactly midnight via sitting on a magical set of Parisian stairs and a waiting for a magical 1920s Parisian taxi). They are insanely lazy, but that's besides the point. It's the laziness inherent in every interaction–regardless of which time/space continuum the characters happen to be inhabiting–that is really offensive.

The one way in which this movie sort of works is as a corny but sweet love letter to a bunch of early 20th century influences. And another theme: that artists thinking their era is somehow inferior to the one(s) which came before it due to a manufactured and false sense of nostalgia is also an interesting notion. But not when it's this bogged down by bad writing, poor acting and what starts to feel like 'dead icon namedropping', like Woody Allen was checking influences off a list, especially after the 9th or 10th famous artist had been unearthed. (I think my tipping point was the introduction of Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein. Bates is so bad, it feels like she's reading her dialogue off cue cards. At least someone like Brody, in his five minutes onscreen as a tweaked-out Dali with a legitimately funny accent, goes for it by being over-the-top. Bates just seems bored.)

I usually find Woody Allen’s films to be completely mediocre, pretty good or occasionally great. I rarely dislike them like I dislike this. (Shit, I can even stomach Small Time Crooks for what it is.) But there is very little to like about Midnight in Paris. Even with its poorly acted, unlikable characters, and having barely any laughs to speak of, its cardinal sin is that it's soooo boring. Don't listen to (practically all) the critics, they're clearly old and obviously suffering from similar delusions that inspired Allen. Seriously, 93%!?

*** part of THE BIG EPISODE 300 EXTRAVAGANZA wherein I reviewed 36 movies, mostly live reads of critiques I wrote between 2009-2012. The finished product above is a highly edited version of the truly embarrassing one that was read during the five-hour podcast recording. I guess this is growing up. ***

THE 36 MOVIES REVIEWED DURING EPISODE 300

30 MINUTES OR LESS • ALEX BAG: UNTITLED FALL '95 • AWAY WE GO • BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD • BEING ELMO • BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM • THE BROTHERS SOLOMON • A BUCKET OF BLOOD •
THE CAMPAIGN • THE CENTER OF THE WORLD • CHRISTMAS ON MARS • THE CHRISTMAS TREE • CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE. • (500) DAYS OF SUMMER • A FIELD IN ENGLAND • FUNNY PEOPLE • GET HIM TO THE GREEK • GIGANTIC (A TALE OF TWO JOHNS) • INCEPTION • JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME • LEAVE NO TRACE • MAN ON WIRE • MIDNIGHT IN PARIS • MONEYBALL • MOON • MUTUAL APPRECIATION • POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD • RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES • SLEEPWALK WITH ME • SOME DRINKING IMPLIED • TIM AND ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE • TRANSIT • TO ROME WITH LOVE • THE WICKER MAN • WINTER'S BONE • YOUTH IN REVOLT

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 300ii - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 300iv ⫸

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