An unexpected treat

Rating: 7/10 (5 November 2011)

The fact that 75-year-old Woody Allen opens his latest film with a soothing yet slightly over-indulgent montage of countless Parisian places seems to have led many to believe that he is besotted by this famous city, but they are forgetting that a film director may often just be presenting a viewpoint, may not necessarily share it themselves. In this case, it is likely that this deep passion we see does not belong to Woody Allen, but his effortlessly lovable protagonist, Gil. Brilliantly brought to life by Owen Wilson, a popular comedic actor who often tags along with Ben Stiller, but has left him behind on this outing, Gil is an unshakable romantic who intends to pursue a career as a novelist, with Paris being his ideal writing station. It seems that the only thing holding him back is the insistence of his whiny, closed-minded fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her snobby, overbearing liberalist parents (Kurt Fuller and Mimmi Kennedy) to continue churning out formulaic but reliably profitable Hollywood film scripts as he is currently doing.
As the four of them are trying to enjoy a decidedly uncomfortable parisian holiday, they have a chance encounter with Inez's overzealous but good-hearted friend Carol (Nina Arianda), and, much to Gil's annoyance, her insufferable know-it-all husband Paul (Michael Sheen, who rises admirably to the challenge of masking his natural likability), after which the women unite the two younger couples as travel mates for the rest of the trip, but the seething friction between the men make it a very awkward arrangement.
As you can see, within the first half hour, the foundations have been laid for yet another zany romantic and situation comedy: the antagonistic goody two-shoes jerk; the clumsy and confused protagonist struggling to satisfy the other characters; the tough, hard-to-please parents, the well-meaning bystander; the tight setting that allows almost no escape; everything's there at the ready. Then Gil sensibly decides to withdraw from the unpleasantness and drop the contented façade, an act of ordinary intelligence that is commonplace in the real world but equates to a stroke of genius in the world of oddball comedy. Heavily drunk and a little out of his senses, he decides to take a nice leisurely stroll around the city streets seeking inspiration for his writing. At the stroke of midnight, sitting down in a particular spot, he magically enters his favourite Parisian era: the 1920s. When this occurs, we are just as surprised as he is, the film having so convincingly set itself up to be something very different. It is perhaps the most cunning and well-executed deception since Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The audience is completely unsuspecting, and until Gil starts running into people like Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and Scott Fitzgerald.
After having such a fabulous night in what he has always thought of as the Golden Age, Gil becomes a regular visitor, returning to the real world each day with more and more quirky discoveries and fresh ideas, sending his loathsome companions into a state of utter bewilderment. This is another point at which the film diverts from the familiar route, where the female spouse continually complains and obsesses over the male protagonists apparent descent into madness and until he eventually comes to his senses and butters her up once more, because keeping their relationship together is paramount, no matter what the holes have to be patched up with. As Inez takes incessant whinging to soaring new heights, Gil makes no effort to appease her and instead finds solace in being with the lovely Adriana (the wonderful Marion Cotillard), an adventurous young soul, who is one of Picasso's numerous gorgeous muses and lovers. The end result of these relationship dynamics is highly interesting and genuinely surprising, so I won't spoil it.
It is these surprising elements that Woody Allen has added used rather unpromising ingredients to put together a very smart and enjoyable film that in the end comes to a very insightful conclusion about Gil's nostalgic romanticism: the past will always seem more inviting than the present, regardless of what era the present might be, for it does often take many years for true beauty to be revealed and appreciated, and there will always be a yearning for that blissful innocence and security of the past. This is not just true of time, but also of place, and that is perhaps what may Woody Allen may have been alluding to in the opening sequence, that Paris is perceived as a perfect paradise, but, as shown with a few of those shots, much of it is as mundane and imperfect as any other Western city. These pieces of thematic material also help to lift this film above the ordinary standard, and make good use of its astutely controlled 94-minute running time, producing a very worthwhile comedic fantasy that also co-stars Carla Bruni, Kathy Bates, Léa Seydoux and Adrien Brody.