I expected to love the
latest Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, and wound up just liking it. I may be in the minority here, from what I gather.
The wonderful 1920s party
scenes and Parisian atmosphere are worth the admission alone, and the film’s
time-travel element is certainly enchanting. But I thought the writing was not Allen at
this best, and I especially stumbled over some bad casting.
Owen Wilson, playing Gil,
and his fiancée, Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, were decent, I thought, but
Inez’s annoying, know-it-all intellectual friend Paul, played by Michael Sheen,
was only modestly effective and needed better lines. It was just an OK job in
what could have been a memorable role.
The worst casting and
writing, though, was the Ernest Hemingway character, played by Corey Stoll. If
you’ve read a lot of Hemingway and a lot about Hemingway, you bring certain
expectations to how he’s portrayed. Stoll’s lines were over the top and a
caricature of Hemingway, he didn’t look right for the part, and he lacked
enough gravitas for the role. Other than that, he was great.
So go ahead, say it was a
great movie. As always, your comments are welcome.
— Ron Kovach, senior
editor, The Writer