I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life rushing toward the next. In elementary school, I wondered when I could finally do the important and adventurous things that teenagers could do, or when I could be older and as popular as they seemingly were. As a high schooler, I just wanted to get to college. High school felt overrated and dramatic and petty, and I wanted to get away from home and be somewhere new, leading me to work harder to graduate sooner. As a college student, I’ve spent the last three years taking extra hours year-round, my eyes fixed on the ultimate goal of no more school ever again/moving somewhere new/having a job that I love/getting married/being an adult in the “real world,” since my world is clearly not real yet.
Contentment is a funny thing because, as much as we (I) try, it is never physical, never tangible. The abstractness is a fine reality for many other concepts (faith, peace, etc.). But contentment falsely begs to be found in something. Some place. Some person. Some time that isn’t ours.
I took a break from my in-over-my-head style work load to slow down for an hour and a half, opening up my Netflix with a couple of friends mid-day and pulling up the Woody Allen film, “Midnight in Paris.” In the kitchen, one friend was baking a sopapilla (a.k.a. hot, gooey layers of Pillsbury crescent rolls, cinnamon and cream cheese), and as the sweet aroma began wafting through the apartment, a little montage of Paris began dancing across my television screen, and I was whisked away.
“Midnight in Paris” is the story of a young, aspiring writer named Gil Pender, who travels to Paris with his beautiful but disagreeable and easily agitated fiancé, Inez (who also wears some of the most obnoxiously placed shirt-belts in every single scene, but I digress). In the 2011 film starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard, Gil hopes that Paris will bring new life and inspiration to his writing, while Inez is exhausted with Gil’s endless dreaming of the “golden age,” a 1920’s Paris. While Inez is distracted by the Parisian sights and sounds (and an old romantic flame), Gil walks the Parisian streets, and as the clock strikes midnight, he is suddenly invited to enter the 1920’s, where he meets artists such as Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Gil returns to the same spot at the same time every night, enthralled that he is living his life in a “better” time with prestigious artists as his closest friends. Unable to convince Inez of the truth of his nightlife, Gil begins living two separate lives in two separate eras, causing him to consider: What makes a certain time great, and do I have that in mine?
The movie overall was an easy and whimsical watch, but it’s one where you almost don’t know who to root for. Owen Wilson (Gil) is clearly the champion of the narrative, but he’s an undeniably imperfect character, with nearly as many flaws as any of the “antagonists” (if they should even be called that in this story). Gil simply has different flaws, more likable flaws, but wow, is he full of them. He’s distracted, and obsessed, and struggles relationally. This was difficult for me to wrestle with at first, because I prefer for my characters to have a stark line between good and evil. But every person that crosses the screen in this film is quite obviously flawed. Maybe this quality makes it more “human,” but be warned: Gil is not Captain America. The only person you’ll feel like you must root for is F. Scott Fitzgerald, mostly because he’s played by Tom Hiddleston. How can you not root for Tom Hiddleston?
Every classic artist that I have ever loved (and even those I learned about and disliked) came to life in “Midnight in Paris” exactly how I had always imagined they might have been based on their persona on the page or canvas or screen. I was fan-girling over them as much as Gil. I wanted to jump through my screen to have intense discussions about art and life or just what we ate for lunch if that’s all I could get to. Every few minutes, I’d announce to my two friends who were watching the movie with me: “THAT’S PICASSO!” or “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE IN PICTURES!” or “THAT’S A REFERENCE TO HIS WORK IN _____!” I was like an obnoxious toddler at Disney Word when she first gets a glimpse of her favorite Disney princesses. I was getting out my mental souvenir autograph book every five or so minutes.
To tell you the truth: I don’t want to go back in time, but I do want to go forward. Constantly. “Once I have this, I’ll be happy. Once I have that, I’ll be satisfied,” I tell myself. Once the degree is in my hand. Once the ring is on my finger. Once I land the job. A million goals that flood my brain until I look back and am unsure of what just happened, until I look in front of me and realize I’m still not content.
Through a progression of moments and realizations (and possibly some more time travel), Gil returns to 2010, this time for good. No more meandering past street corners at midnight only to be approached by a historical figure. The Gil that returns, however, is a different man from the Gil that went to 1920, not because any physical element of his life has changed, but because he sees differently. He sees what’s good about 2010. He sees the worth in today’s Paris. He understands that today can be a golden age, too. And the film ends with a walk below the endless street lamps, right where he is, rain pouring, but content. And so I walk below Union street lamps at night, trying to notice the moments.
