MIDNIGHT IN Paris (Woody Allen, 2011) ***

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2011)

This easily constitutes Allen's best work since MATCH POINT (2005), also signaling a welcome return to the historical/time-travel themes of ZELIG (1983) and THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) respectively. Though it appears that Allen is meeting an increasing dearth of actors to work with (his films are usually peppered with top talent), it is admirable how this essentially modest company still manages to sink its teeth into his typically verbose, neurotic and amazingly informed script! By the way, I was surprised to see a plethora of Spanish companies behind this film – could it be that Allen is no longer a desirable commodity in his own country?!
Anyway, here we get Hollywood hack screenwriter Owen Wilson setting his mind on penning The Great American Novel, with Paris (the mecca of the art world in an earlier age) supplying the ideal background to fire up his imagination. However, since he is accompanied by his predictably condescending fiancée' (a rather wasted Rachel McAdams) and her obviously conservative parents, he finds his creativity stifled – especially after she runs into an old friend (Michael Sheen), whose know-it-all attitude irks Wilson no end. So, he goes away by himself on a midnight stroll, wishing he were back in the 1920s (mind you, I harbored a particular kinship with his predicament – since I also believe that I was born too late and, consequently, feel out-of-touch with the current times!)and, lo and behold, an old-fashioned car comes along and whisks him away to rub shoulders with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter (whose songs are a constant on the soundtrack), Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein (played by Kathy Bates), Alice B. Toklas, etc.! Here, he also meets and falls for a woman (Marion Cotillard, who typically walks off with the film) that is actually contended by both Picasso and Hemingway. Since he tries to fit in by presenting himself as an author, Hemingway tells him he will refer a draft of his novel to the matriarchal Stein but, as soon as he exits the bohemian establishment, the premises revert to their current state i.e. a laundry!
Of course, McAdams does not believe a word he tells her, so she reluctantly agrees to accompany him the next night – but she quits in contempt before the proverbial 'taxi' arrives, precisely at the stroke of midnight. This time around, Wilson is introduced to Salvador Dali (an impressive and hilarious Adrien Brody, forever re-routing a conversation towards a discussion of rhinoceroses!) and Luis Bunuel: his initial contribution is very understated, as if Allen did not quite know how to use him – however, in a subsequent scene, we get an inspired moment in which Wilson sneakily suggests to the Surrealist master the germ of an idea that the latter would eventually develop into one of his greatest films, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962)but, naturally, he cannot quite grasp the absurd beauty of the situation presented to him so early into the game! While, at first, I was disappointed that Wilson does not walk in and out of the past at random (Allen opting for a Cinderella-type device), Cotillard herself pines for the so-called "Belle Epoque" i.e. the 1890s (even if her own era is known as "L'Age D'Or" – as it happens, the ironic title of one of Bunuel's most scathing efforts!) and, magically, we go back to the dives haunted by such world-renowned painters as Toulouse-Lautrec, Gaugin and Degas!
In the end, even if this is more of a nostalgia trip than a dense time/space meditation a' la the films of Alain Resnais (incidentally, Allen had once decried never having made a truly great film!), we are nevertheless treated to a few choice nuggets of pure mystery: Carla Bruni – yes, Mrs. Sarkozy herself! – translating Cotillard's memoirs to Wilson, clearly published long before but where he unaccountably gets mentioned!; and a private detective, appointed by McAdams' father to follow Wilson on his after-hours 'trysts', falling foul of the time-warp himself and turning up – understandably befuddled – in the Middle Ages! Even so, the elaborate structure still allows for character growth, since Wilson ultimately attains serenity within his own epoch and, having broken up with McAdams (who admits to an affair with the insufferable Sheen), hooks up romantically with a new partner (a girl he had, time and again, conversed with at a flea-market and with whom he shares a fondness for Cole Porter) in a downpour – to him, Paris at its most expressive – at the conclusion.