Splendid return-to-form Woody Allen comedy; Wilson is wonderful in this valentine to romance in The City of Lights

Rating: 9/10 (1 June 2011)

MIDNIGHT IN Paris (2011) ***1/2 Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, Aiden Brody, Michael Sheen, Mimi Kennedy, Kurt Fuller, Carla Bruni, Alison Pill, Nina Arianda, Tom Hiddleston, Yves Heck, Corey Stoll. Splendid return-to-form Woody Allen comedy about a harried writer (Wilson never before so good and nuanced!) dreaming of living in the past – The Golden Age of the '20s – while vacationing in Paris with fiancée McAdams discovers he actually can at midnite (!) Allen has concocted a potently funny valentine to The City of Lights with his conceit of hobnobbing with the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein et al as a balm to his neuroses with lush cinematography by Darius Khondji and again Wilson's bittersweet, low-key comedic tour de force. Make a reservation now for the year's most sublime comedy!