Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, can best be described as charming and endearing.  It's the best one of his films that I've seen (which is saying almost nothing, since I haven't seen his famous older works).  Owen Wilson was disarming in the lead role, channeling Allen's trademark speaking/writing style winningly.  The film's exploration of nostalgia, romance, and making peace with your own life and your own time came across with a lot of humor and some feeling, but I was never deeply moved or provoked to life-shattering revelations.  But then, I don't think that was the purpose or goal of the movie.

My only major complaint with the film is a feminist one.  I was really disappointed by how the women surrounding Gill were like paper-doll cut-outs that only stood for one thing throughout their time in the movie.  Gill's fiancee was the classic harping nag who didn't appreciate Gill and had no imagination.  It didn't take a genius to figure out she and her family represented the unromantic materialism that trapped Gill and made him feel like he should have been born in an older, more romantic Golden Age.  When Gill gets transported back to the 1920s, one of many people he runs into is the alluring Adriana (Marion Cotillard), girlfriend of painter Pablo Picasso.  Admittedly, the camera loves Cotillard and it's not her fun that she's unavoidably, stunningly gorgeous.  But it seems that's all she gets to be.  She is The Beautiful Girl Who Could Take Me Away From All This.  Just as Inez (Rachel McAdams) stands in for the dull real world that's choking Gill, Adriana stands in for the sweeping, sentimental romanticism that Gill believes he really belongs to. 

The only woman who does anything interesting or full-bodied is Gertrude Stein, played with typical brilliance by Kathy Bates.  She speaks eloquently and bluntly.  She is a woman with heart who also uses her mind.  But then again, I couldn't help but cynically note that she also seemed to be presented as asexual (although I could be wrong about that), which would mean that in the universe of this film, women are either strong-willed and brilliant or sexy/nagging or sexy/alluring. 

No movie is perfect, and goodness knows I've seen or heard of films with far more problematic, even horrifying sexism, so the faults of this film appear mild in comparison.  But then again, if some nit-picky blogger like me doesn't identify potential sexism wherever she sees it, who will? :-)