Way late in seeing this one.
Say 'Hi' to Trotsky for me. Ha!
Gustav said:
Personally I think he felt obligated to tell us to "embrace the present" because it sounds bad to say "yes, you would have been happier some time in a past era", and you can't have a time travel movie without addressing the idea, but what I came away with was "just be glad you weren't born even farther in the future."
I agree this is an interesting take -- but the film has such an optimistic ending with Wilson's character ending up with a young (hot) Parisian soulmate. The present doesn't look too bad after all -- so I can't agree with you Gustav (note, Wilson's character ends up with the young one and not the older Mrs. Sarkozy).
I also agree that Allen was a little in-the-face with the "embrace the present" moral. Initially I thought he was onto making the nicer point that all artists are
linked together not through acquaintance but through how they build on the work of others (as touched on by the freshman lit 101 reference to Hemingway about all contemporary American novels tracing back to Huck Finn) over generations. But, no, all we get is you can't live in the past, literally.
I'm wondering why the current hang-up with time travel. I'm half way through 11/22/63, which has the same escapist trappings. Some reviews have expressed that this is a departure for King but he's always been a nostalgic guy, so I don't see much new here. Isn't 'you can't go back' one of the great truths? I think with Allen we have a guy that is getting older, that now needs a younger proxy (Owen Wilson) to fill in for him. And with Stephen King, we have a guy that's also getting older and still processing the fallout from his near death accident a few years ago.
[Attilla, given your involvement with theatre, I actually thought of you while reading 11/33/63 and recommend the book to you.]
As for the casting, I liked McAdams. I didn't like Bates (not harsh enough). I liked whoever played Zelda but not the guy the played F.Scott or Hemingway.