let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky

Rating: 7/10 (15 October 2011)

Gil is a jaded screenwriter, materially successful but longing to write "real" literature. He finds himself in Paris because his fiancé Inez is the daughter of a Republican philistine businessman and he happens to be in the town on an M&A venture. When Inez's insufferable friend from college shows up, Gil takes to wandering the streets alone at night. And then magic happens.
Gil takes his novel to the luminaries of the Lost Generation and his life is affirmed. "Prufock is my mantra" he declares at one point, and indeed the ennui of Elliot's poem is the barrier he must overcome if he is to break free and live a fulfilling life. Gerturde Stein advises him not to give into despair but to write in a way that provides an antidote to it. That is to be Gil's journey.
Literature graduates will get the most fun from all the in-jokes. My favourite was Gil explaining to Man Ray, Dali and Bunuel that he has somehow time-slipped into their era. They see this as a matter of course, but he tells them "That's because you're Surrealists." Gil has been brought there because of a nagging dissatisfaction with the circumstances of his own present. His bride-to-be is sexy but shallow. His career is to serve up consumerist entertainment. The Jazz Age offers so much more, including a romantic alternative. But then those living in the 1920s seem to hanker for a Golden Age of their own...
Owen Wilson as Gil is so much the Woody Allen character that his performance borders on impersonation. It works in a good way. The jokes come regularly, the film is modest in its intentions and honest about them. Quite simply, it is charming. This is the film the term "a gem" was invented for.
The fun continues when you get home and look up all the in-jokes and characters you weren't too sure about (the audience I saw it with didn't see too clued up on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - the pun on that poem's most famous line was met with silence). It is Allen at his whimsical best, and that is always worth seeing.