When I thought about answering The "SONSOFBITCHES!" Snubathon many different roles came to mind. Several from this past year alone of horrible shunning immediately jumped at me like: Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston for The Deep Blue Sea and Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Over the past few years I'm not sure there isn't a blogger alive who hasn't outcried over Leonardo DiCaprio's severe lack of nominations. But not wanting to beat a dead horse, I kept searching for a performance that truly touched me. And I found it staring at me right in the face. It was a role that snuck up on me more than I had ever anticipated: Owen Wilson for Midnight in Paris.
A Hollywood screenwriter with ambitions to write novels, Gil Pender, is on vacation with his fiance and her parents in Paris. Sticking out like a sore thumb in this spoiled American family, Pender is in love with the city of lights and its history. Strolling the streets at night, he enters the Paris scene in the 1920s. Is it a delusion? The magic of the city? Or just his wild imagination? Pender's journey leads him to meetings with icons like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When he returns to his normal life in present-day, Pender is forced to realize the shortcomings of his pending marriage and his wanderings into nostalgia.
Written and directed by Woody Allen, the script is no doubt wonderful on its own; charming, lighthearted, theming nostalgia and modernism. For any Woody Allen fan, or those at least familiar with his personality and humor, I think it can be said had he written this movie thirty years ago, he would have taken the main role. But in this time and age it goes to Owen Wilson, who really does no wrong. Despite how good the rest of the cast is like the pedantic know-it-all Paul or Ernest Hemingway and Adriana, it's Owen Wilson's whose part wouldn't be the same if another actor had taken the role.
This is unbelievable! Look at this! There's no city like this in the world.
There never was.
There never was.
When lying awake in bed after meeting Ernest Hemming and F Scott Fitzgerald, Wilson's disbelief is an example of his display of glee and shock. There's no faking his level of astonishment for what he had just experienced, as he whispers to himself, "I’m Gil Pender. I was with Hemingway and Picasso. Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. I’m Gil Pender from Pasadena, Cub Scouts, I failed freshman English. Little old Gil Pender has his novel with Gertrude Stein. Oooh that girl. She was so lovely."
Other amazing moments include when he realizes a party he accidentally crashed is hosted by Jacque Cousteau, the musician playing the piano is Cole Porter, the woman dancing in the middle of the bar is Josephine Baker. In another moment when Pender is leaving his hotel suite, planning on a romantic rendezvous with a gal from the past, his plan is thwarted when his fiance and family show up unexpectedly. In a second he goes from happy anticipation to his heart and nerves shaken to their core.
It can be said, and it's obvious, that an actor's job is to be authentic as their characters, wearing emotions on their sleeve to use for their given circumstances. Pender isn't a heavy character. They're all light: delightful, exuberant, clever, gleeful. In the genre of dry yet wittyfilled indies, Wilson gives a full-range performance that's so hard to pull off these days. Not just do it well but with authenticity.
Oscar season and the Academy have their favorite picks for nominations: musicals, historical epics, actors who make full physical transformations or moments of emotionally powerful monologues. Some dramas with a bit of comedy are sometimes honored. But, comedies are still hard to come by this time of year. In a perfect world of worthy nominations, this one wouldn't be on a snubs list.