Midnight in Paris Review: "Actually, Paris is the most beautiful in the rain."

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2012)

Ahhh Mr Woody Allen, you either hate his work or love his work. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a big Woody Allen fan but I've seen a lot of his films (2000 and up) and I either really enjoy them or find them a complete waste of time (usually cause of the way it ends), there's hardly ever a middle ground. Match Point—loved it, Scoop—hated it, Cassandra's Dream—hated it, Vicky Cristina Barcelona—loved it...Midnight in Paris—loved it.
Midnight in Paris comes stacked with a very impressive cast. I'm surprised with the choice of Owen Wilson as the lead protagonist especially with Allen's recent history of casting, how we say, more alpha male, less goofy type male leads in the likes of Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Hugh Jackman...you get the picture, Owen Wilson simply doesn't really fit that list. Having said that, I felt Owen Wilson's soft hearted, goofy boyish charm worked really well for the character of Gil. Rest of the cast includes Rachel McAdams, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Michael Sheen, Alison Pill, Tom Hiddleston, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Léa Seydoux and my very personal favorite, the very beautiful and talented Marion Cotillard. Cotillard plays Adriana, a beautiful women that catches the eye of Gil (as well as many others).
The story is quite simple, Gil (Owen Wilson, Hall Pass) and his fiancé, Inez (Rachel McAdams, The Notebook) and her parents are visiting Paris for business. Gil, a writer who feels a little bit uninspired as of late, feels like he needs to live in Paris for a little while to suck in the artsy and romantic culture to become inspired so he can finish his novel but Inez doesn't share the same perspective. I don't want to reveal anymore to the story because I went into this movie reading only the brief synopsis listed on IMDb which basically reveals nothing and I was pleasantly surprised. I will say this though, it was a interesting, different and very simple approach that Woody Allen used to execute his concept for this story and I thought it worked very well and in a very suitable Woody Allen fashion.
The only hint I would give is the film involves a lot of discussions involving historical characters such as Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, to name a few. Is it important that you know your history for this film? It'll probably be a bonus but it wont distract you from the main story and the message that Woody Allen is trying to convey. At the heart of Midnight in Paris is of course, like all Woody Allen films, a romantic love story but its also about people living in the past, people who find the present boring and unfulfilling, people who crave nostalgia and blame the emptiness of the present simply because they are afraid to face the future. Something I feel that we can all relate to, at least once in our life.
Overall I really enjoyed my viewing experience with this film. Paris was perfectly chosen to capture the art, culture and romance to tell this story. The variety of very talented actors and characters kept things very interesting and made me want to learn more and more about each character. I loved the presence that Marion Cotillard's character, Adriana brought to the screen. Her outgoing, contagious charm and flirtatiousness was the total opposite of Inez and it created quite a bi-polar dynamic when you see each of the characters interact with the lead character, giving us a chance to see how Gil reacts to two very different love interests. I'm surprised I'm saying this, but I really enjoyed the chemistry between Gil and Adriana, if you were just to tell me to compare the two actors, I would've never believed it but just goes to show how well the writing was done (I'd love to see another Woody Allen film with Marion Cotillard as the lead but I digress). The dialogue in all their late night walking scenes were really well written and well shot. Midnight in Paris is a solid movie, full of diverse characters, with an interesting concept executed in a simple but enjoyable way that oozes Woody Allen—suffice to say, if you are a fan of the director's work, you will enjoy this film.
You can read the full review along with other movie reviews at: http://goo.gl/8KgJN or www.theTVSamurai.com