In the movie Midnight in Paris, the main character, Gil Pender, has a strong and constant conflict while he is on vacation in Paris with his fiance. He wishes that instead of living in the 2000s, he could have lived in Paris in what he thinks was a better time, the 1920s. This wish comes true when, every night at midnight, he is transported back to the "Golden Age." Gil meets famous artists and writers from the time period and a women named Adriana, Pablo Picasso's former lover. Gil and Adriana spend a night together walking around Paris. They get into a carriage and are transported into the Belle Époque time period (1871-1914). At the end of the night, Adriana wants to stay in this time period, just like Gil wants to stay in the 1920s. Gil seems to realize that a lot of people wish they could live in a different time. A time that they perceive to be better. He also realizes that no one is ever truly happy in the time and place that they live in and that's just life. Realizing this, he decides to go back to his own time.
This conflict is a universal one that many people experience. People are never one-hundred-percent happy with their lives because that's how life is. This is a conflict that seems to be inspired by peoples' dislikes for their own lives and the constant want for something better. For some reason, people look into the past to find an ideal life, but for the people who experienced that past, it probably wasn't their vision of ideal. Wanting to live in the past is just a way of creating an imaginary world where there are no problems. Every time period has its advantages and disadvantages and once people realize that, it's easy to solve this conflict and embrace your own time.
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