While vacationing in Paris, and engaged couple realizes that their views on life are maybe too different. While the couple is going separate ways, the movie focuses on how the man, Gil, is finding himself and falling in love with the city itself and the secrets it has. The characters of the movie were cast well, each bringing something new to the scenes. You can see the relationships the way that some relationships change whether they be for the better or the worse. While I enjoyed the film, I have never been partial to sci-fi aspects in movies. The sci-fi in this film is just the idea of time-traveling. While it was a feel-good film that I thoroughly enjoyed, I didn't find myself getting lost in the story. Midnight in Paris has two groups of people that are quite literally separated by time. The only connector that can jump between the groups in Gil, the main character who jumps from present time to the 1920's (his idea of the golden age); but then again that could make him a whole new group for just himself. One group is from the 21st century, present time. This group includes Gil's fiancée, Inez, and their friends such as the museum Guide. The other group is the characters that Gil meets in the 1920's. He meets the famous author Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and the beautiful Adrianna. The group from the 1920's is very lively and Gil finds himself waiting until midnight so he can go to visit them. He develops a feeling that he belongs there rather than in his own time. Gil is even working on a novel, but having trouble so he asks Ernest Hemingway for help and advice. Gil and Inez go to Paris to have a nice vacation together before they get married. During their vacation, they each want to do completely different things and don't necessarily end up spending all that much time being together or at least happy while they are together. To spend the rest of your life with someone who doesn't want the same things as you, seems unreasonable to not only yourself, but the other person in the relationship. Allen uses this marriage/pre-marriage relationship to move the story along and emphasize that Gil is happier in the 1920' rather than the time period he was born into. We see this relationship falling apart in the movie, but if you look around in the real world, relationships fall apart due to similar reasons all the time. People in today's society are so strong-willed and outspoken that it is often more difficult to find someone that wants all the same things out of life as you. Woody Allen uses this film to emphasize that the present day generation is so focused on itself. We don't really take the time to appreciate the past, such as the 1920's, and everything that was popular at that time. Gil believes he is born in the wrong time and would give anything to live in his golden age, the 1920's. Then Allen goes on to show that every generation focuses on themselves. Adrianna, although she is from the 1920's, wishes she were farther back in time in a different era. Allen shows that appreciation for our history is healthy for individuals in society. While not a fan of the sci-fi/time traveling idea, I enjoyed the lessons that were learned by the main character throughout the story line. And I liked how time travel was used subtly in this film. Midnight in Paris wasn't advertised because of the time travel aspect, it was advertised because of the infatuation with the 1920's. Gil, the main character, sees this era as the golden age, and loves his time spent there more than his time spent in present day Paris. Woody Allen, the director, taught me with the film, that sci-fi doesn't necessarily mean there are going to be aliens and witchcraft present. Escaping to Paris in the 1920's brings Gil a new sense of how to live life and be happy at the same time.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Midnight in Paris
(2011)
Media LIteracy Kit MIdnight in Paris: The 7 Skills of MediaLit
1 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
The Way
(I) (2010)
MediaLit Kit: The 7 Skills of Media Literacy
1 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
The idea of completing the Camino de Santiago as a form of grieving over the death of his son, leads Tom to discover life lessons and characteristics that make way for a happier life. This is not the classic road trip movie that most people may conclude it as being. By the end of the movie you are left feeling inspired and wanted to do something that will change your life. The characters in this movie were, in my opinion, well casted. Each brought something to the new to the table throughout the storyline. While the movie is inspiring and enlightening, it is almost predictable at the same time. You know that in the end everything will end up being okay. Being predictable doesn't mean it's a bad movie, especially because the movie is so realistic.
A way of grouping characters for this movie would be grouping together the pilgrims and the non-pilgrims. Each pilgrim has more to their story than what they lead on to. The pilgrims the movie focuses on are Tom, Joost, Sarah, and Jack. Tom begins his pilgrimage almost as an accident. He had no intention of traveling hundreds of miles across Europe on foot. His adult son dies on his first night of attempting the trip, and Tom, coming to Europe to collect his son's remains, decides to take on the challenge of the Camino in honor of his late son. Joost is the first pilgrim Tom meets on his journey. Joost is traveling the Camino because he wants to lose weight and because he is meeting up with friends in a town near the end of the trip. Later in the movie we find out that he wants to lose weight because his wife will no longer sleep with him because she thinks he is too fat. Sarah leads us to believe that she is walking the Camino de Santiago because she wants the life changing experience and because she has vowed to, at the end, quit smoking cigarettes. Later we find out that she was married to a physically abusive man. She became pregnant, but had an abortion so that her husband would not be able to beat the child also. Jack is also a pilgrim by choice. He is a writer that is experiencing writer's block for his new novel. He came to the Camino in order to find inspiration for a new story. He asks every pilgrim he meets why they came to the Camino for creativity. He ends up finding this inspiration in Tom's story. The other grouping of people is non-pilgrims. These I consider to be the people that the pilgrims meet along their Camino that are not traveling. The people that live in the towns they pass through; such as the inn keepers, servers, or the gypsies. Each of the non-pilgrims has something to contribute to the story in their own way. The most influential non-pilgrims are the gypsies. Tom and the other pilgrims meet the gypsies by chance when a boy tries to steal Tom's backpack.
Tom doesn't come to Europe to become a pilgrim in the Camino de Santiago. He starts off the Camino in a state of grief and regret because the last conversation he had with his son wasn't a pleasant one. Each character came to the Camino for a different particular reason, but they all experience the same things along the way. The director, Emilio Estevez, (who was also the writer and the actor that played the character of Tom's son, Daniel) did a fantastic job of embracing the interactions that a pilgrim has along the Camino. Those interactions varied high and low, from people living in the towns they passed though, to the scenery of untouched nature along the horizon. Estevez not only made the Camino de Santiago look like a worthwhile trip, but caused a feeling that makes the audience want to go out and do something for themselves. He made the audience want to see the world and be inspired by both differences and similarities. Abuse is often seen in the form of a man abusing a woman. Emilio Estevez took this idea and included it in the story in more ways than one. There is the obvious abusive relationship that caused Sarah to walk the Camino. She was beaten by her husband, and aborted her unborn daughter so that he would not be able to beat her too. She came to the Camino to forgive herself maybe; Or maybe to allow herself to take back the control of her life and to stop living in fear. The other abusive relationship that is a little less obvious is the relationship between Joost and his wife. While Joost admits early on that one reason he is walking the Camino is because he wants to lose weight, near the end he mentions that his wife wont even sleep with him anymore because she thinks he is too fat. We don't often see or hear of a man being abused in this sort of way, but Estevez did a great job creating the character and the character's way of handling the situation. I have seen inspirational movies before, and each one brings something new to the table. The Way offered to me that you can turn something like grief into an inspirational adventure. While many movies start out with something sad or devastating and end on a happy-note, The Way had a slow progression back into a normal life.
Although grieving, Tom embarks on a journey that will without a doubt change his life and the way he views life forever.
A way of grouping characters for this movie would be grouping together the pilgrims and the non-pilgrims. Each pilgrim has more to their story than what they lead on to. The pilgrims the movie focuses on are Tom, Joost, Sarah, and Jack. Tom begins his pilgrimage almost as an accident. He had no intention of traveling hundreds of miles across Europe on foot. His adult son dies on his first night of attempting the trip, and Tom, coming to Europe to collect his son's remains, decides to take on the challenge of the Camino in honor of his late son. Joost is the first pilgrim Tom meets on his journey. Joost is traveling the Camino because he wants to lose weight and because he is meeting up with friends in a town near the end of the trip. Later in the movie we find out that he wants to lose weight because his wife will no longer sleep with him because she thinks he is too fat. Sarah leads us to believe that she is walking the Camino de Santiago because she wants the life changing experience and because she has vowed to, at the end, quit smoking cigarettes. Later we find out that she was married to a physically abusive man. She became pregnant, but had an abortion so that her husband would not be able to beat the child also. Jack is also a pilgrim by choice. He is a writer that is experiencing writer's block for his new novel. He came to the Camino in order to find inspiration for a new story. He asks every pilgrim he meets why they came to the Camino for creativity. He ends up finding this inspiration in Tom's story. The other grouping of people is non-pilgrims. These I consider to be the people that the pilgrims meet along their Camino that are not traveling. The people that live in the towns they pass through; such as the inn keepers, servers, or the gypsies. Each of the non-pilgrims has something to contribute to the story in their own way. The most influential non-pilgrims are the gypsies. Tom and the other pilgrims meet the gypsies by chance when a boy tries to steal Tom's backpack.
Tom doesn't come to Europe to become a pilgrim in the Camino de Santiago. He starts off the Camino in a state of grief and regret because the last conversation he had with his son wasn't a pleasant one. Each character came to the Camino for a different particular reason, but they all experience the same things along the way. The director, Emilio Estevez, (who was also the writer and the actor that played the character of Tom's son, Daniel) did a fantastic job of embracing the interactions that a pilgrim has along the Camino. Those interactions varied high and low, from people living in the towns they passed though, to the scenery of untouched nature along the horizon. Estevez not only made the Camino de Santiago look like a worthwhile trip, but caused a feeling that makes the audience want to go out and do something for themselves. He made the audience want to see the world and be inspired by both differences and similarities. Abuse is often seen in the form of a man abusing a woman. Emilio Estevez took this idea and included it in the story in more ways than one. There is the obvious abusive relationship that caused Sarah to walk the Camino. She was beaten by her husband, and aborted her unborn daughter so that he would not be able to beat her too. She came to the Camino to forgive herself maybe; Or maybe to allow herself to take back the control of her life and to stop living in fear. The other abusive relationship that is a little less obvious is the relationship between Joost and his wife. While Joost admits early on that one reason he is walking the Camino is because he wants to lose weight, near the end he mentions that his wife wont even sleep with him anymore because she thinks he is too fat. We don't often see or hear of a man being abused in this sort of way, but Estevez did a great job creating the character and the character's way of handling the situation. I have seen inspirational movies before, and each one brings something new to the table. The Way offered to me that you can turn something like grief into an inspirational adventure. While many movies start out with something sad or devastating and end on a happy-note, The Way had a slow progression back into a normal life.
Although grieving, Tom embarks on a journey that will without a doubt change his life and the way he views life forever.
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