MIDNIGHT IN PARIS – The Review

Woody Allen makes a film annually and every few years critics latch on to his latest work and declare it his “comeback”, or his “best in years”. That seems to be the case with his latest, the romantic comedy MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. It is a great film but I think that Allen’s been on a roll. His last two films WHATEVER WORKS, and YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, were two of his very best (both high on my top ten lists of the past two years), and while I don’t think the new one is as good as either of those, it’s highly recommended.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS stars Owen Wilson as Gil, a screenwriter and self-described “Hollywood hack” who is tackling his first novel, about a man who runs a nostalgia shop. An apt subject since Gil himself is nostalgic about the past, particularly Paris in the 1920s, when great artists, musicians, and writers from around the world met, mingled, fought, and romanced at parties and in cafes. Gil is vacationing there with his snobby fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her conservative parents. When he confesses to Inez that he could see himself living in the City of Lights, she rolls her eyes  and continues her shopping sprees, so Gil retreats and forlornly hits the rainy streets with a bottle of wine. At the stroke of midnight, he’s lured into a passing vintage taxi cab and suddenly finds himself partying with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill), who take him to a soiree where Cole Porter (Yves Heck) is entertaining the crowd on the piano and an intense Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll – perfectly larger than life) is showing interest in his writing. In the morning, he’s back in the present with no idea how he’d travelled back in time (Allen wisely doesn’t attempt to explain it) but he knows he can’t wait until midnight to come again so he can go back. Over the next several nights, Gil hobnobs with Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), Luis Bunuel (Adrien de Van) and eventually falls in love with Picasso’s mistreated mistress Adrianna (Marion Cotillard), a beauty herself nostalgic for Paris of the 1890s.

They’ve always loved Woody in France and apparently the feeling is mutual. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is Allen’s time-traveling love letter to Paris and is mostly sweet and sentimental. Allen clearly idolizes  the city and these luiminaries who hung out there as much as Gil and, though his script is often hilarious, his look at the ex-patriot bohemian art scene is never cynical or tongue-in-cheek. These artists are presented matter-of-factly and it’s mostly up to the audience to be up to speed on their cultural history (one reason I suspect that high-brow critics, often dismissive of Allen’s recent work, are embracing this one so strongly). Owen Wilson is surprising well-cast as the Woody proxy, with an affably naive charm that makes him likable as a man with his mind anywhere but the present. Though I miss the days when Allen would write complex roles for actresses such as Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow, the two actresses who share the most screen-time with Wilson are also fine. Marion Cotillard is given a lot more sympathetic material to work with than Rachel McAdams, who does well as a shrewish snob, though one wonders why a nice guy like Gil would have hooked up with Inez in the first place. Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy are hilarious in their one-note roles as Inez’s crass parents,  who view their future son-in-law as a weirdo and dreamer. Michael Sheen is a funny scene-stealer as Inez’s former flame, a know-it-all jerk, but the gimmick casting of Carla Bruni, she of Nicolas Sarkozy wifedom, in a barely-there role as a tour guide, doesn’t impress. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is breezy but lightweight, a whimsical trifle without much plot  beyond the set-up, but the humor is sophisticated and the many of the jokes hilarious (I love when Gil tries to explain to his long-dead heroes what a ‘Nostalgia Shop’ is). Woody Allen, who began his career by re-dubbing a Japanese comedy, has a habit of redefining himself with unimaginable success. His directorial skills have led him to both musicals and drama, and though his popularity wanes and his films are inconsistent, Allen has always kept a steady foot in the comedy spotlight and continues, like the great artists depicted in his new film, to retain a place among the greats.

4 1/2 of 5 Stars