A Magical Mystery Tour De Force

Rating: 10/10 (23 May 2011)

Woody Allen's latest is beautifully written and a charming story that belongs in the top ten of his all-time greats. From the opening montage of lush, picturesque Parisian scenes the film is a love letter to the city of lights. Owen Wilson is perfectly cast as Gil Pender a Hollywood writer who has penned his first novel about a man who owns a nostalgia shop. Throughout his stay in Paris he hearkens back to the iconic characters who once roamed its winding cobblestone streets.
For everyone who sometimes ponders how life would be in another time, this film through whimsical storytelling and pure fantasy transports us. Perhaps that elusive world does not really exist or we are never truly content in whatever station we reside. Gil is enraptured with discovering the bistros where Ernest Hemmingway once wrote or the idea of living in garret with a sky light.
His fiancé played by Rachel McAdams who adroitly depicts a character both shallow and blasé and content to listen to the pseudo-intellectual musings of her onetime flame. To discuss the plot much further and divulge the magic twist would be a shame.
Midnight in Paris is a gourmet meal of delectably charming and playful scenes. Adrian Brody is riotous as a surreal artist and Kathy Bates deftly evokes a wise and famous writer. A character in the film remarks of seeing a movie but, she cannot recall what it was about or who was in it, not so with Midnight in Paris. It is a sweet, endearing and thought provoking film that will whisk you away into a sublime magical world.