Midnight in Paris (2011)
3 out of 5 stars
Terry and I watched this over a week ago, on a Monday evening. We were interrupted a couple of times by telephone calls from our children, so the flow of the movie suffered a bit. I believe we also paused the DVD while we made dinner.
As with all of Woody Allen‘s films, I take time to absorb his presentation and vision. In the case of Midnight in Paris, however, additional time did not endear me to the film. I guess I felt it a bit too obvious.
If I had not read a recent FilmCritic blog post on the past year’s mediocre scifi Academy Award scarcity by John Scalzi, I doubt I would have ever watched this film. Since Scalzi claimed Midnight in Paris actually masqueraded as a time travel tale, it intrigued me enough to place it at the top my Netflix queue.
As stated at the Wikipedia article, “the movie explores themes of nostalgia and modernism.” Woody Allen tapped into the ‘Golden Age’ vibe for each succeeding character, leading us down the path of impending disillusionment, liberally laced with nearly every famous author or artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who conveniently converged at midnight in Paris (insert appropriate year here … and there’s the beauty of time travel as a plot device). But not all this famous name dropping could elevate this film to greatness, at least for me.