Gil Pender is a guy living in a jagged relationship with not only his fiance, Inez, but the contemporary times as well. Gil is a self-proclaimed Hollywood hack who churns screenplays left and right for successful movies but isn't satisfied with a villa in Beverly Hills and his plans to movie to Malibu with Inez. What he'd rather prefer is to live in Paris for the rest of his life and write novels but he isn't certain if he has what it takes to be a novelist.
On its veneer, Midnight In Paris deals with an intriguing, but simple, issue of a person living in a time completely out of sync with his psychology. But why is he hallucinating about living in a different era all together where he gets to meet and receive feedback on his debut novel from the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald? Not that Gil isn't leading a perfectly normal life with Inez in USA where they occasionally plan to sneak in a trip to Paris, just like any other American. Gil isn't, like anyone else, out of sync with time but he is simply out of sync with people around him. Our worlds, as I've always believed, are defined by the closest of our friends and family. We might be living and thinking about a macrocosmic world, but its the microcosmic details that define us. That's why I believe the detailed microcosm is the most interesting part of any character's life.
To be honest, there is not much of an analysis and dissection that can be performed on this film. There aren't so many layers laminated on one another to make Midnight In Paris. Midnight In Paris deals with just one issue of fish out of the pond. Yes, in Gil's case one might think that the pond is actually the bygone era and hence it is too bad that he's as jumpy and peevish as he looks. That's where Midnight In Paris differs, it does not bolsters the cliche but adds a new perspective to it. The last scene when Gil happily strolls down the bridge with Adriana, who says "Paris is most beautiful when it's raining", the film screams at us that it's not that a person is agitated to be out of the pond, but its restiveness lies in the fact that his loved ones don't realize that he has lungs with which he can breathe in an otherwise choking air outside the pond.
The film is great and so is Woody Allen! But if a 90 minute movie seems a little, just a little, slow at times, it just might be the case that I was watching a movie that wasn't just my taste. But anyways, very much recommended. Watch it before going to Paris. The film is so good looking that I won't be surprised if it was partially funded by French Tourism department!
**** / *****
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