Luminous and charming

Rating: Null/10 (20 November 2011)

A charming, sweet film, that explores the nature of nostalgia (its glow and its darker shadows), and shows off Paris, both modern day, and in the 1920s, almost as beautifully as Manhattan showed off New York.
Laced with wonderful cameo and supporting performances (Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, Corey Stoll, just to name a few) and gifted by a quirky, lovably sad Owen Wilson as a sort of Eyeore of a struggling writer in the lead.
Wilson is probably the best stand in yet for Allen in one of his films, precisely because he's so different from Allen, and doesn't seem to be doing an Allen impersonation. (Even Allen admitted that part of the appeal in casting Wilson was casting someone so far from himself).
The 94 minutes of the film flew by, and never lost it's charm.
A number of professional critics noted that this was a new tone for Allen, neither laugh out loud comedy, nor serious drama (or, as in his greatest films a combination of the two), but is more of a light drama, with a gentle comic whimsy. I actually think Allen started exploring this interesting new tone with his last film 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger' And it does seem to have reinvigorated him.
I did have a couple of problems with the film. First, Rachel McAdams as Wilson's fiancé, along with her family, were made too caraciturish, too obviously 'bad' for a film this subtle. McAdams is a brilliant actress, but here she seems pushed into being a symbol of all that's wrong with shallow, materialistic Americans.
More problematically, after gently, subtly exploring it's themes for the whole film, Allen suddenly starts laying them on very thick at the end, putting them very literally into the dialogue, almost as if he doesn't trust us to be smart enough to get the point of the whole lovely film he just showed us.
But these are minor complaints, and while this may not be one of Allen's great films, it is a very good one, and that makes is special and worth seeking out.