Here's a Woody Allen movie I wanted to like...

Rating: 6/10 (13 March 2012)

Because I heard such good things about it. I ended up liking the bits of music in the background, the look of Paris itself, and two of its principal actresses--Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard, both of whom played their roles to the hilt.
But I had trouble with Owen Wilson's habit of "slavishly" portraying Woody Allen as the troubled central character who finds living in the past is giving him the kind of nostalgic glow he craves. It takes the full story to unwind before he finds a girl who likes to walk in the rain alongside him and is also an eager devotee of Cole Porter's romantic music. Wilson's imitation becomes tiresome before the first scene is over and from then on I had a hard time just trying to enjoy the film.
Lots of name dropping goes on throughout the writer's story, once Wilson embraces the past at the magic hour of midnight. He meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda, Picasso, Gertrude Stein (a bored looking Kathy Bates), a macho Ernest Hemingway and a hilarious Salvador Dali adroitly played by Adrien Brody. There's a hit and miss aspect to the casting of these celebrated characters but they provide the right comic relief.
But something seems wrong from the start, mainly due to the wrong casting of Owen Wilson as the protagonist. He seems as nervous and on edge as his mentor (Mr. Allen), but watching him is an uncomfortable experience.
The film is slight but amusing, although hardly worthy of a Best Screenplay Oscar.