A charming story set in a charming city

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2011)

You have to be a little familiar with the golden age of the "roaring 20's", to be able to appreciate this dream-like movie: when Paris was the centre of a brilliant and explosive cultural environment and people like Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds and many other artistic geniuses strolled around the city in search for inspiration as well as pleasure. For me, it was one of the most charming literary period of all times, that's why I couldn't but enjoy this lively picture, which gets to render the enjoyable and intellectually brilliant atmosphere of those times. Let's admit that the subject and the setting could be enough to make a movie appealing, but Allen reveals once again to be the best director when trying to capture the spirit of a city: in this case, the magic of the "ville lumière" really springs out from every day-and night framing, making the viewer feel like being there.
There's always the Allen character, Gil, partially neurotic but poetic at the same time, but the characters I liked most are those magically related to that literary past, in particular, Corey Stoll as Hemingway, Marillon Cotillard as Picasso's lover, but above all an extraordinarily convincing Cathy Bates as Gertrude Stein. There's some wisdom in the dialogues, mainly focused on the perpetual human dissatisfaction for the present, and the longing for a more intense and vivid past, and so the contemporary Gil longs for the jazz age, the Jazz age longs for the Belle époque, which in turn longs for the Renaissance.... to the conclusion that the present is the only possibly vivid time, only if we have the courage to live it. As I have already noticed in Allen's latest movie, the director is getting old and seems to be looking for some final comfort, as if, once abandoned the caustic tone of the past, he has turned to a more relaxed and peaceful one. With "Midnight in Paris", the story, and the way it is handled seems to confirm my impression, and the result is a pleasant, enjoyable, lively comedy.