This movie is pure pleasure. This movie makes me want to go to Paris. This movie makes me want to take a walk into my favorite Golden Era of history. In short, this movie makes me glad to be alive.
Woody Allen's movies always interest me. I have only seen 11 of his 41 movies, but none of them have proven to be uninteresting. Here, he displays a rare joy. Most of his movies seem intent on either deconstructing life and poring over its complexities ("Crimes and Misdemeanors" or "Match Point"), ruminating about the eccentricities that torpedo love affairs ("Annie Hall"), or just being silly ("Bananas"). While this movie definitely has the Allen neuroses on display, the overall arc of the movie is one of joy of living. It shows a neurotic character (played very well by Owen Wilson) who is able to get beyond his rut and discover something important about life.
The movie follows two lovers Gil and Inez (Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams) who are engaged to be married. Inez's father is an ultra-rich American businessman who is in Paris dealing with a merger. Gil and Inez end up spending time with them in Paris. While Inez and her parents feel the French capital beginning to wear on them, Gil is quite taken with the city. He is a Hollywood screenwriter who has grown dissatisfied with his work, and he is working on a novel. He wants to write novels and things that he cares about, but he knows that the screenwriting pays the bills, so he cannot do otherwise. While he restlessly scampers around the city considering what it would have been like to see Paris in the 1920's, his fiancee is being drawn to Paul (Michael Sheen, doing a great American accent), a friend of Inez's whom she finds fascinating and urbane. Gil finds him to be insufferable and pompous. He is visiting town and begins to spend time with Gil and Inez, and ends up spending a lot of time just with Inez. As Inez spends more and more time with Paul, Gil walks the streets of Paris late at night, and stumbles into an amazing world which heretofore only existed in his dreams. These late night walks could hold the key to him successfully writing his novel and fulfilling his dreams.
There are so many details to love in this movie. To start, the comic relief of watching the pseudo-intellectual Paul interact with Gil is great. Here, I am reminded of the classic scene in Annie Hall in which Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are in a movie line behind a pseudo-intellectual blowhard who wishes to share his opinion on film with everyone in the room. Also, the details shown in Gil's dream world are wonderful. I sense that there are so many details that I will catch more of them upon further viewings if the film (and there will be further viewings). Further, the way Woody Allen handles the relationship between Gil and Inez is quite impressive. Sometimes, characters in movies are purposely unsympathetic in order for the audience to dislike them (see Bill Pullman in "Sleepless in Seattle). Here, while Inez and her family are clearly the antagonists to Gil, they nevertheless are not two dimensional. Instead, they are very well written and add texture to the story. Even though there are rocky roads for Inez and Gil, it seems that it is because they are two very different people with different priorities, not simple because one is clearly a villian.
All of this wonderful storytelling is wrapped in the cozy blanket of Paris. Someday, Steph and I will make it there, and this movie did nothing but wish for that time to come more quickly. The movie is a very special fantasy. It is played out in a world of such unimaginable wealth that it is a tribute to the writing that the characters and their story still seem so accessible. One example of this is a scene in which the characters are all drinking Bordeaux wine dated from the 50's and 60's. As I watched, I was seeing the dollar signs in my head as I contemplated how expensive the wine they were drinking was. The wealth is part of the fantasy after all. But it is not part of the fantasy just for its own sake, but for the "good life" that it represents. It is ironic that these folks who know nothing but the "good life" can still be dissatisfied.
Still, I would love to drink that wine on that balcony overlooking Paris...and to sip the wine and take in the ambiance. Maybe someday....but until then, I'll always have this movie.
