Review of Midnight in Paris (2011) by Orson2 — 24 Feb 2012
A movable feast ends up as mere piffle! Such a first-class cast, winning conceit, and gorgeously photographed Paris. First of all, the film is too short. It needed another 20 minutes to explore the conflict it sets up.
More fundamentally, the writing is problematic because it lacks motivation: Wood Allen needed a believable foil in our hero's in-laws to be as driven and obsessed as he becomes. Clearly, Allen knows no right-wingers, so we get caricature.
If he reads the New York Times and needed to know about non-leftists, all he needed to know about them could come from columnist David Brooks. Brooks observes that the further right-wing you go politically, the nicer and nicer people become.
And why is that? Because in government, media, and universities - and even elite big business - these outcasts have to be all airs among the dominating and powerful left. Now, with this in mind, our hero ought to have been repelled not by petty meanness and humorlessness, but niceness gone nuts! Treacly, Minnesota nice on powdered sugar and maple syrup.
On other words, coma inducing saccharin manners. Instead, Allen simply re-cycles his grasping Jewish shrews for a WASP-y Republican mother-in-law ("It's always the maid!" she cries when a peal necklace is stolen).
The effect to simply too insincere - too feckless and unbelievable. Furthermore, the motivation for our protagonist to STAY in Paris of the past would have had greater complexity and acquired meaningful depth one can identify with.
Instead, the result is too much like Woody moving to Hollywood - out of his element amidst all the shallow veneer. Thus, promising beginnings really disappoint in a "Midnight in Paris.
This review of Midnight in Paris (2011) was written by Orson2 on 24 Feb 2012.
Midnight in Paris has generally received very positive reviews.
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