Midnight in Paris: Grade A

A

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Cathy Bates, Carla Bruni, Corey Stoll, Marion Cotillard, Adrien Brody; Writer-Director Woody Allen.

I confess, I saw this film in a cinema. No doubt It will be out on DVD later this year. It is a very traditional fairy tale, complete with a simplistic moral, “there’s no place like home,” or maybe “nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.” A rich American family visits Paris on business, along with the daughter’s fiancé (Wilson), an aspiring literary writer who loves the magic charm of Paris so much he wishes he could live there, preferably in the 1920’s. The shots of all the major Paris landmarks are stereotypically beautiful, stunningly so, as lovingly done as in Allen’s portraits of New York and London in his other movies.

Drunk and lost in the streets at midnight, Gil (Wilson) is invited into a 1920’s car and finds himself inexplicably at a 1920’s party, where he meets Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald while Cole Porter plays his tunes on the piano. There are some good jokes as he realizes that he has been magically transported back in time, a fact he comes quickly to accept without question. He promises Ernest Hemingway (Stoll) that he will bring his manuscript for a critical reading, but Hemingway insists that Gertrude Stein (Bates) would be a better reader.

On successive nights, Gil goes walking at Midnight and is picked up and taken back in time again. He meets Picasso, Bunuel, T.S. Eliot, Dali, and many other luminaries who populated Paris at the time, including one of Picasso’s girlfriends, Adriana (Cotillard), with whom he falls in love. During the day he returns to his hotel, becoming ever more estranged from his fiancée (McAdams) and obsessed by the possibility of living in 1920’s Paris permanently. Eventually he realizes that wouldn’t work out, but also realizes he will not marry his fiancée, leaves her, and stops the midnight time-traveling to live realistically in modern-day Paris.

Allen gets magnificent performances out of his actors. Wilson is his stand-in and has the confused, defensive stuttering and stooped posture down perfectly, but Wilson does much more than mimicry. He turns in an impressive, serious dramatic performance that I didn’t know he had in him. Cotillard is also stunning, literally unrecognizable compared to her dreadful role as Edith Piaf (La Vie en Rose, for which she inexplicably won an Oscar). Stoll as Hemingway and Bates as Stein are scene-stealers. So the performances are excellent, even if the subject matter is light and frothy silliness.

The story is a fairy tale, so does not bear scrutiny, but still, I yearned for more interior life in Wilson’s character. Surely he would doubt his sanity, just a little? He would have a few questions? He would be tempted to say interesting things to 1920’s characters about life a hundred years hence? Show a digital wristwatch maybe? The comic possibilities are endless, but Allen passes them all by. As close as we get to time-travel humor is when Wilson wonders if he could pick up a few Mondrians for 500 Francs, or when he gives a first-hand explanation of the meaning of a Picasso painting in the modern-day Louvre.

But it’s not that kind of movie. What kind is it? An airy fairy tale, no more. A trifle. A throwaway, with mesmerizing cinematography and several gripping performances, but no insight and only a light dusting of humor. But for all that, it was a very pleasant diversion on a hot Sunday afternoon when an air-conditioned theater sounded like a good idea.

Paris, Je T’Aime: Grade A

A
Paris, Je T’Aime (2006). Mostly French (subtitled).

A plethora of actors, known and unknown, including Steve Buscemi, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Bob Hoskins, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emily Mortimer, Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara , Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu. Directors include Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Cohen, Gerard Depardieu, Wes Craven, and many others.

Twenty-one short stories five to eight minutes long, each portray a romantic relationship unfolding somewhere in Paris. I was boggled by the scope of creativity. Each piece is a jewel; not a lump of coal in the bunch, but the range of ideas, cinematic styles, themes, settings, and music, is just stunning. Some stories are direct: boy and girl fall in love in Paris, the end. Those depend on fine acting and moviemaking for their punch. Several are subtle and surprising and you have to pause the video and think about them for a minute. A couple are wildly surrealistic, making little sense other than to indulge a riot of images and sounds. Some are sentimental and affecting. Others are obvious but witty or creative, such as the romance between two vampires. My least favorite was the wordless romance between two mimes. All segments are of exceptionally good quality, and with fine acting. The one with Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands was a little off, because the skeletal Gazzarra had slurred speech and looked like he was recovering from a near-fatal illness. It’s nice to see that he is still alive, but his was the only performance that detracted. Rowlands held him up though. This is a wonderful movie, something for everybody, and everything for the person who loves cinema.

Broken English: Grade C

C
Broken English (2007)

Parker Posey, Drea de Matteo, Melvil Poupaud. Writer-director Zoe Cassavetes.

Parker Posey is always fascinating, and she held my attention throughout this plodding, uneventful, romantic drama. Her fleeting gestures are especially captivating, but as much as I like her, I think she does better in a satirical role where she can display her signature arch irony. Here, she is a Manhattan single looking for love, who meets only disappointing guys. The character drinks too much (there is a wineglass in every scene), pops pills, eats junk food (which we don’t believe for a minute, looking at her trim, muscular figure), smokes continuously, is depressive, has no interests, and suffers anxiety attacks. I wonder why she can’t meet an interesting guy? She does finally meet a Frenchman (Poupaud) who she sort of likes but doesn’t trust, but he leaves after one weekend. With her friend (de Matteo) she goes to Paris on a quest to find him, but can’t. Why does she do that? Desperation, maybe. She wouldn’t know love if it bit her, even though she has a tender, loving relationship with her girlfriend. The directing does capture the psychological intimacy of the characters, and that is no easy feat. Many scenes have characters standing against a featureless wall where there is no escaping the camera. It’s act or die. However, the whole movie reminds me of a weak Woody Allen film about rich New York neurotics whining about inconveniences. Nothing happens in this story and despite Posey’s magnetism, her character’s development is too slight to be very interesting. Watchable and forgettable.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped: Grade B

B
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005). French, subtitled.

Romain Duris. Director Jacques Audiard

Duris is a 20’s something thug in modern Paris. He and his partners buy old apartments, evict the tenants and sell. His aging father is also a slumlord and he sometimes asks the son to beat up somebody who doesn’t pay the rent. Duris is a chameleon who can turn from quiet reflection to head-bashing violence in an instant. It’s a fabulous acting job. By chance he meets an old piano teacher who rekindles his love of the instrument and he imagines himself as a concert pianist. He takes brush-up lessons from a Chinese instructor who speaks no French but the music and the body language are enough for them to communicate. When she yells at him in frustration, we know exactly what she means without understanding a word. He struggles with two lives– business thug and concert pianist – right up to the final moment of the movie. The structure is episodic: beat up a guy here, meet a girl there, play a few tunes. There is no suspense except the question of whether or not he will be successful as a concert pianist, and that idea doesn’t hold much water. A person must start playing the piano in the womb and continue a lifelong obsession to even have a remote shot at such a goal. One does not just take a few lessons after decades as a real estate “enforcer.” And anyway, his playing is not so good, so it is quite a shock to find that he is eventually successful, even though he still beats up guys from time to time. That’s got to be hard on the hands. The character is so improbable that it’s difficult to be engaged in the story, which wanders aimlessly from one scene to the next. Still, the acting is great and the directing is stylistic. Worth a look.