Charming little romantic fantasy

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2011)

This is a lovely little film, extravagant in its visuals, with Paris serving as another character in the story, looking glorious of course. The photography alone is worth the price of admission. The premise is charming and is executed in a believable way. The filming of it is simple and effective, with no tricks, just as straightforward realism.
The contemporary characters are out of Allen's stock barrel of characters. The two leads could be played by Allen and Diane Keaton, but they are now too old to play them, so the young actors serve as stand-ins for the two originals. Wilson has an interesting face but is too good-looking and too WASP-y to play the "Allen character". He does a spot on imitation of Allan's quirky mannerisms, vocal and physical, in this role. I wish he hadn't. I think a more original take on the "Allen character" might have been more effective. Here, he just seems like an imitation, and not a believable one.
The writing is fair. The dialogue is Allen's usual "realistic" way of making his characters speak, which never seems like the way people talk, just someones Idea of how they talk.
The best part of this film for me are the time travel scenes, populated by all of the main character's heroes from the past. They could be a dream, but they are executed with total realism. These roles are written and acted with more success than the 2010 characters, which all seem as if they actually belong in the 1970s, not the 2010s. All of the great people the hero meets in these episodes are done quite well, except for a stilted Hemingway (but how else could you portray a character who was mostly bluster and defensive pretense in real life?) Kathy Bates is the real standout as Gertrude Stein. She takes an underwritten part and creates a portrait of the iconic figure not at all as a caricature of her, but as real, breathing person, intelligent, savvy and believable.
The real problem with this charming film is that it's too long for its slight story. This might have been better as a short or as one episode in a multiple-story film, which Allen has done before. Here, about halfway through, it starts to drag and you begin to wonder...
I think this is a fine little picture, but not a great one, and not one of Allen's best. I think it is garnering the praise it's been getting because it's superb in contrast to most of the drek that's being released right now.