Woody Allen's Most Entertaining Film Ever

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2011)

Woody Allen's latest film might be his most entertaining and rewarding ever. Midnight in Paris is hardly new material for Allen. Many people have long accused him of recycling old ideas. At the same time, Allen's newest creation touches on familiar ground but still seems refreshing all the same.
Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter spending some free time with his fiancée Inez (Rachal McAdams) in the French capital. They too are a classic mismatched couple familiar to Allen fans. Gil an aspiring novelist hopes the inspiration of Paris will help him complete his first novel. Inez on the other hand is content spending time shopping and dancing with a 'pedantic' old flame named Paul played by Michael Sheen.
Gil believes that he is wasting his talent at screen writing and dreams up a story revolving around a nostalgic shop. He is particularly fascinated with Paris in the 1920s when it was home to many great artists, poets, writers and even filmmakers of that time. Michael Sheen's character Paul refers to it as 'golden age thinking,' that your personality is best suited in a specific time frame of the past.
The film explores the idea that many people think that their lives would be easier or more fruitful if they had been born at another time. But in reality the people of any so called golden age likely long for a different time frame. It is mostly found in people with a deep intellectual curiosity. Perhaps the idea is erroneous like Paul says. But Woody Allen's film seems to say,'So what?' Perhaps it is not the allure of Paris in the 1920s that is so engrossing Allen. Perhaps it is the bleak pessimism of the present that is so troubling to Allen. Gil's materialistic fiancée, her right wing Republican parents and the pretentious pseudo-intellectual played by Martin Sheen are clearly archetypes of people in his own time.
Midnight in Paris is typical of many Allen films. There are bad romances. There are true romances that could never be fulfilled. This film is not as multi-layered as Annie Hall and Manhattan, widely held to be his best work. But you will not care.
You will not really care to know why exactly he is picked up at the same corner of Paris by a classic Peugeot every night at midnight either. Midnight in Paris might just be the most entertaining Allen film ever. It is as mesmerizing and full of charm as the people he meets in his adventures.