Ah, Paree! Ah, Woody Allen!

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2011)

This film is highly recommended.
There are those who live in the past, those who celebrate life in the present, and those who look to the future for happiness. Director and screenwriter Woody Allen poses many questions in his sophisticated romantic comedy, Midnight in Paris : Do we romanticize the past to make our present and future seem bleak and remote? Can we ever appreciate the present and view it with the same glorious rose-colored glasses of the past? Does our sense of reality become impaired with what was, what is, and what will be? Can we ever learn to accept the time and place in which we live? Interesting musings persist in this amusing and clever film.
Filling in for Allen and giving a fairly accurate impression of the comedic actor down to his halted speech patterns and sardonic demeanor is Owen Wilson as Gil, an American writer and tourist inspired with the Parisian way of life and nostalgic for the Golden Age of yore. He and his shrewish fiancÃ©e, Inez ( well acted by Rachel McAdams ), are there meeting her well-to-do conservative parents on holiday. This engaged couple really are opposites from the start: she prefers socializing, hobnobbing, and parties; he enjoys the arts, solitude, and introspective moments. At an elite party, Inez meets a pompous college professor ( a note perfect Michael Sheen ) with whom she becomes infatuated while Gil becomes alienated and exasperated by the whole social jet set.
That evening, around midnight, Gil walks the rain soaked streets of the City of Lights and becomes lost. He stumbles across some partygoers who magically transport him back in time to the twenties, his favorite idealized time era, where he later meets his romantic muse, Adriana, mistress to Picasso, Modigliani, and his personal guide to the better life. Adriana is perfectly cast by the charming and lovely Marion Cotillard who brings such grace and enchantment to her pivotal role.
Once touched by the romance of a bygone era, Gil eagerly goes it alone whenever the witching hour approaches, in hopes of mingling with the likes of literary celebrities and artists of the past: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stall as the writer gets to deliver some of the script's best lines), Salvador Dali, Gertrude Stein, etc. There is much name dropping and celebrity stereotyping as Gil timehops to the past which gets to be a bit of a monotonous plot device; yet it gives the film its intellectual and aesthetic appeal and emphasizes Allen's unique spin, ironic wit, and sparkling dialogue.
Just as the director's earlier masterpiece Manhattan was his cinematic love letter to New York City, Midnight in Paris becomes one of his best films in years, It is his personal rendezvous with one of Europe's most romantic of destinations and Allen shows the city in all its glorious splendor. Yes, the city and his dreams successfully seduce Gil in this delightful flight of fancy ( or fantasy, in this case ) and Allen has thoroughly bewitched his audience with his magical modern day fairy tale of love and romance. GRADE: B+
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