This is the line the beautiful Rachel McAdams delivers to Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris. The movie only came out in 2011 and I’ve seen it at least 15 times. Identifying with a character played by Owen Wilson came as quite a surprise to me, with his previous character’s including a train robber, a wannabe Tenenbaum, a male model, a Wedding Crasher and an irritating third wheel.
Wilson plays Gil Pender an aspiring novelist who travels to Paris with his fiancee Inez (played by McAdams), freeloading off of her parents who are in town on business. Gil earns a living as a Hollywood Screenwriter, mostly getting paid for ‘crummy rewrites’ and longs to give ‘actual literature’ a shot in Paris, following in the footsteps of his idols Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Inez is a spoiled, high maintenence, social climber who’s aspirations and goals (if she has any) are the opposite to Gil’s.
If you haven’t seen the movie, go and watch it now.
Woody Allen is one of those director’s who’s work can either bore me to tears or have me more engaged than I’ve ever been before. I remember the first time I saw the opening monologue in Annie Hall, I was stunned, at that point I’d never seen anything like it. Usually a movie begins with some opening credits, sweeping panorama’s, a murder, or some slow building character devlopment. Here I was confronted with Alvy Singer, an anal, neurotic, insecure, pretentious, Jewish- American comedian and I understood everything I needed to know about him in the first ten minutes. It wasn’t that painful first act where you don’t really know any of the characters and you’re meant to just accept them for how they react and interact with each other. Here, I knew Alvy and wanted to know how this unlikable character, who I liked so much, was going to end up with Diane Keaton, and lose her, all within 90 minutes. It wasn’t difficult to see where the source material came from. Anyone who knows anything about Woody Allen, knows how much of himself he puts into his characters and dialogue, and Annie Hall is still one of my all time favourite films.
Gil Pender was no Alvy Singer, he was the Woody Allen you’d actually want to know. Charming, imaginative, ambitious yet laid-back and totally lovable. My two passions in life are movies and history. When they team up, I’m on Cloud 9. I am incredibly nostalgic and often wish I lived in a different era; An era with James Dean, not Justin Bieber. Hemingway, not E. L. James. Katherine Hepburn, not Lindsay Lohan. The Cotton club and the Moulin Rouge, not Moomba and Oceana.
Not only did I find the film delightfully charming, it also gave me a basis by which I could then judge people, my friends especially. Those who liked it, and those who didn’t. I can always respect the opinions of my peers when it comes to movies, heck I’d be a hypocrite if I blasted someone for not liking the Godfather, when I despised Moonrise Kingdom. When it comes to Midnight in Paris, even though I respect the opinions of others, I couldn’t help but draw parallel’s with the character of Inez and the people who didn’t warm to the movie. Friends of mine who saw the movie and loved it became the Gil Penders, the creative dreamers, the imaginative fools in life. Those who claimed it was ‘unrealistic’ and ‘pathetic’, or ‘boring’ and they ‘didn’t get it’ were the Inez’s, the buzzkill’s, the unimaginative shrew’s who favour realism and money over fantasy and romance. My family and friends viewed this movie at my insistence and their responses were exactly as I expected them to be.
Corey Stoll who played the role of Ernest Hemingway was superb. I read a book called the Paris Wife by Paula McLain which chronicles Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson, and seeing Stoll as Hemingway made the novel incredibly enjoyable. I doubt he’ll step into Hemingway’s shoes again, but I’d love to see them make a film based on the novel and have him star again.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it, and sees themselves as the creative dreamer as opposed to the literal realist, go and enjoy this film immediately!
inlovewithafantasy 