MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Film Review

My interest in seeing MIDNIGHT IN PARIS stemmed from my brother actually sending me an email on how much he loved the film and since this was outside of the ordinary for him, it immediately made my list.  He also hinted that some of the lessons in the movie were similar to those I learned at the University of Santa Monica where I have my Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology.  Of course, he must have been paying attention to what I was learning there more than I thought – this was impressive!

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is definitely a conscious film.  It opens and closes just like any other Woody Allen movie which was comforting as I haven’t seen one in a while and I missed his inevitable style.  Owen Wilson was charming and well-suited for the role of Gil and I had forgotten just how much of a mean girl Rachel McAdams can play.  She is a huge favorite of mine but I started to dislike her within minutes of meeting her character Inez.  After doing some of Alison Armstrong’s work in Celebrating Men I had to cringe each time Inez talked down to Gil.  You could certainly see how flawed their relationship was and upon deeper reflection I really saw how Rachel’s character was like an archetype of Gil’s inner critic.  He is truly on his own hero’s journey in the film and learning how to stand-up for his dreams with courage (as Ernest Hemingway would put it!).

One of my favorite moments in the film was when the couple and their friends are examining a Picasso favorite and Owen’s character just shines as he knows first-hand the story behind the painting since he met the artist in his midnight walks to the 1920’s.  Everyone in the theatre both laughed and cheered him on which is really what often happens when we do shine.  In spiritual terms, it was as though he was having a “direct knowing” experience and no one could even question him; they all just looked on in awe.  His fiancé asked him “what have you been smoking” which is often the way the outer world disbelieves when someone taps into this kind of wisdom experience.

Another favorite part of the film was that Paris is of course a main character.  The enchanting streets brought me true nostalgia (a big theme of the movie) as there is something magical and utterly romantic about Paris.  In one of the scenes you see the River Seine and Notre Dame and I remembered a picture I had taken in that same spot of a couple walking arm and arm in 2000.  It made me realize how that scene and moment in time was captured for good in a photograph.  I think this is one of the reasons I love photography so much, it allows us to freeze time.

(spoiler alert) Of course time is one of the main themes in the movie.  My high school graduation quote in my yearbook was “Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, and today a gift, that’s why it is called the present.”  In many ways the film comes to this conclusion as well as Gil finally realizes he won’t ever be happy and truly living his best life if he is always focused on another time that might be better than the now.  We get to witness his transformation when he realizes that his thinking has been off-track and when he embraces the present.  He even lets go of everything he knows and thinks he wants to really step forward into living his life fully in the present moment.

After the film my friend asked me “are you ever nostalgic?” and I realized I’m not.  Its not that I don’t love different decades because anyone that knows me well knows I can rock out to 80’s music like the best of them and have always wanted to be a flapper for Halloween.  That said I do my best to live in the present moment.  It is a practice but every time I’m in fear I realize I’m not in the present moment.  When I am in the now I feel nothing but peace and mindfulness and quite often a lot of joy.

It got me thinking too.  I feel so blessed to live during this moment in our history.  We are at such a transformational tipping point in consciousness and as much as I often condemn my humanness, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.  I feel so blessed to have visited with the great thought-leaders of our time as well.  I could really relate to Gil’s sheer glee at meeting Hemingway, Cole Porter, the Fitzgeralds, Dali, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and many others.  I started to think of my idols, especially in writing, and Wayne Dyer, Joan Borysenko, James Twyman, Sonia Choquette, and Marianne Williamson came to mind.  Many of them I have personally met or at least seen speak in person.  The movie made me want to look up all of these past geniuses’ work from the ‘20s but also made me grateful to study the geniuses of 2011.  I know and trust that with the launch of Synergy TV that I will only spend more time in their close circles and that there will be nothing to do but smile when I’m with them.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS will most likely come out on VOD and PPV around the time of Synergy TV’s launch.  The vision I received was that it would be one of many amazing films in the transactional section of the channel.  I’ll keep holding that vision and I hope you will as well.

Enjoy a trip back in time and to one of Earth’s greatest cities when you see the film.  Send me a postcard from the 1920s!

Entertain – Enlighten – Inspire,

Kate Neligan, Founder of Synergy TV and Mindful Media Entertainment LLC