Excellent, Engaging and Very Creative

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2011)

Gil (Wilson) accompanies his girl friend Inez (McAdams) and her parents to Paris, France. All want to see everything, taste wine everywhere and go here and there except Gil, who is writing a novel. He wants to recapture the essence of Paris of the 1920s by going for walks and is picked up by a 1920s Peugeot taxi and is greeted by F. Scott Fitzgerald and another time by t.s. eliot. Through them Gil is introduced to Hemingway, Monet, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Picasso, Djuna Barnes, and Alice B. Toklas. How good is that?]
Woody Allen would probably have starred in this but he felt a younger man who had a whining voice like his was needed and Owen Wilson was perfect. And, he was right.
This is the most creative movie I have seen since Forest Gump and Inkheart.
The movie starts with some very beautiful scenes of Paris: parks, gardens, the Arch, the Eiffel tower, street scenes with and without it raining. Allen took his time with this and we are all grateful for it. Very nice.
As we get into the story we are not sure how Gil transfers into the past. We see the taxi and Gil gets in and then he is in the 1920s. At first we think he may have been dreaming,or like Alice who found a rabbit hole, and, well we really don' t know the answer to that one. That's Woody Allen's secret. But, there Gil is hob-nobbing with all the great writers and painters of the time. Funny that they never mention the different clothes he wears. At some point he does say he is from the year 2010, and that doesn't seem to elicit any real emotion from anyone as they accept it. He does give Zelda Fitzgerald a valium to keep her calm to not commit suicide; and again the valium is questioned but accepted.
The only good funny line I found in here was when Hemmingway asks Gil if he hunts. Gil replies, "only for bargains."
But, it is Adrianna (Cotillard) who realizes she is in the 1920s but prefers the 1890s where she and Gil are now in the Moulin Rouge and she introduces Gil to Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, and Gauguin. Is it that we find the past more exciting to live in than our present and is it that we don't appreciate what we have in our present? Or are we too quick to forget about the past? Am glad Gil didn't meet any real philosophers as I would really be lost. (Indeed)
I want to tell you about the detective Eniz's father (Fuller) hired to follow Gil as he felt Gill was up to more than walking the streets of Paris for inspiration for his novel. I want to tell you but I cannot. You have to see that for yourself. HA ! Yes, it is a funny moment. Can't say more.
This is excellent, quite engaging and very creative. Allen's tribute to the arts and to Paris, France. (9/10)
Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No Language: No.