Midnight in Paris is the latest film from maybe the most prolific American director, Woody Allen. With this much output, there’s going to be hits and misses. Midnight in Paris is the former. Woody Allen films have a niche audience, with the occasional crossover, such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Midnight in Paris seems set to remain within that niche audience of loyal Woody Allen films. Not only does it have the expected collection of neurotic characters, but through its time travelling concept, boasts a list of personalities only a graduate of English literature and art history could recognise; Hemingway, Dali, Man Ray, Fitzgerald. Essentially, without a pretty good knowledge of the Parisian art scene in the 1920s, much of the film’s references and humour will be missed.
Fortunately, the film has something else going on, something universally applicable. The idea of halcyon idyll. What if life in the past was better? This is something many often consider and the film uses its central protagonist to address this well. Allen clearly has an affinity for the past as he makes the present so unattractive, especially the Tea Party Republican parents in law. Yet, Allen also takes care to remind us that living in the past can only be a hobby and that appreciation of the present is the only way to be happy. The idea roots the film and gives it an accessibility that many would struggle to find amongst the art culture name-dropping.
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