Allen Finds Another Purple Rose in Paris

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2011)

Woody Allen's 2011 contribution to cinema has been heralded as a return to form by many critics, and for a few shining moments at the outset, it looks like it might just as well be that way. Through a lovely montage of Parisian images by cinematographer Darius Khondji, Allen evokes the city's unabashed romanticism set to Sidney Bechet's nocturnally soulful saxophone on his composition "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere" much the same way the filmmaker captured the cosmopolitan energy of Manhattan set to Gershwin's grandiose "Rhapsody in Blue" in his 1979 masterwork. The camera finally lands on the lead characters as they visit Claude Monet's picture-perfect gardens at Giverny. From there, Allen treads familiar territory following the adventures of Gil Pender, Allen's alter-ego, a successful but unfulfilled Hollywood screenwriter on a trip to Paris with his fiancée Inez along with her wealthy, xenophobic parents who are funding the trip with typical bourgeoisie disdain.
Longing to join the literary ranks of his heroes F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, Gil, we discover, is working on his first novel much to Inez's chagrin. Enamored with the way Paris was during the 1920's, Gil soon finds himself in an alternate universe after midnight where he is rubbing elbows over martinis at jazz clubs with not only Fitzgerald and Hemingway but also influential figures like Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, and Salvador Dali. By the light of day, however, he faces the mundane reality of Inez and her family, who are completely indifferent to his flights of fancy. Matters get worse when Gil and Inez bump into Paul, an old college crush of hers, who has since become the type of intolerable pedant Allen skewered so well in the movie theater scene in "Annie Hall". Gil – as he toggles between present-day Paris and his idealized vision of the city's past - will likely remind Allen's fans of the shenanigans that occurred in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" down to the introduction of an out-of-sync love interest, this time a beautiful clothing designer named Adriana, who was Modigliani's mistress and has now become Picasso's embattled lover. Allen obviously enjoys regaling in Jazz Age-era Paris and presumes his viewers will have more than a passing familiarity with the period.
Thankfully, I just saw the Steins Collect at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, so I received a primer on some of these seminal figures. You can tell Allen is less interested in the contemporary scenes, which are not as arresting with these characters coming across more like stereotypes despite a game cast. As the hapless Gil, Owen Wilson is a bit improbable as a writer with high literary aspirations, but his sincerity in the role helps win us over. Back in "Mean Girls" mode, Rachel McAdams isn't given that much to do as Inez except to express constant frustration. Usually playing sincere historical figures like Tony Blair and David Frost, Michael Sheen has a field day as the entirely unlikeable Paul. There's a predictably no-nonsense turn by Kathy Bates as Stein and an over-the-top one by Adrian Brody as Dali. As Scott and Zelda, Tom Hiddleston (the malevolent Loki in "Thor") and especially Alison Pill play their archetypes quite well, but among the real-life figures, Corey Stoll stands out as the pugnacious Hemingway. As Adriana, Marion Cotillard makes the most of her fantasy figure role. All in all, this is solid work from Allen but still a fair distance from his most accomplished.