Just What the Doctor Ordered

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2011)

I liked every single little thing about Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen, one of the most astonishingly prolific writer-directors in American film history, after a consecutive string of anxiety-induced dramas about the cruel indifference of life, he has finally given release to a well-deserved and surprising reflection. Believe me, reflection is the right word. Without compromising his signature melancholy longing, Woody has woven an utterly breezy, life-affirming and still personal and hilarious comedy, populated by a charming and sometimes joyfully surprising cast who look to be enjoying themselves, and the buzz is infectious. In a now rare ecstatic mood, he daydreams about youth and the excitement a young writer urgently wants to preserve before it becomes smothered in the dehumanizing daily grind, takes that stress and calmly, confidently drifts into a world he romanticizes with such warm, savory atmosphere and a true master's storytelling economy, and coming to a perfectly aimed close, where the story should and must end, and with tidy reconciliation it does, and boy, do we hate coming back to reality when the lights go up.
As per his usual, Woody provides one more couple at the apex of marriage and finds conflict in that universal clash between security and passion. Hollywood screenwriter Gil and fiancée Inez have accompanied her parents to Paris and the excursion shows up their differences in a most prickly manner. She's all about shopping for priceless chairs while he wants to take midnight saunters in the rain. Indeed, he loves Paris so much he wants to move there, an idea she rejects like he's nuts. Meanwhile, she grows impressed by an conceited, know-it-all professor, who precludes every pontification with "if I'm not mistaken," the satire being that his enlightenments are usually untrue. One evening at midnight, dismayed by the seeming trajectory of his life, Gil bails on her to walk alone. As he sits down to pull himself together, an antique car drives up.
Revealing any more would be a cruel deprivation of your pleasure taken by the amazing grace of the film's fluid, elegant surprises. The crisp pace, firm cutting and old-fashioned invisible style leave you longing for more as the movie whooshes by in 94 minutes of enchanting pleasure, what they always meant when they used to say "movie magic." The indomitable soundtrack includes some of Cole Porter's most remarkable songs. The smart period and present-day chic wardrobe and sumptuously arranged interiors are also entitled to year-end awards acknowledgment. Woody, who claims indifference to his work so frankly, clearly takes delicate care of the filming of his stories.
Characters in his 42nd film, aside from but not exclusive of Gil himself, have a sole crucial attribute which really provides the actors scope to have loads of fun with their roles. The ensemble is enormously exuberant in their typecast character parts. Cotillard is the right choice for the charming pixie-like spirit who distills and unravels Gil's passion, but McAdams has the high-maintenance modern young American woman down pat. She is the ideal distillation of how most of Europe views us, and brings real emotions to Inez that inspire our genuine reactions. No surprise. Woody's invariably above marginalizing female roles.
Surprise is in the welcome familiar faces we stumble upon throughout. Adrien Brody's priceless take on a certain Spanish cultural icon, for instance, is delectably memorable. But it's a gem in a convention of gems. Wilson is Woody's best-ever casting of someone else to personify his customary self-doubting and hung-up character. Expressing obsessive sentiment with witty jousting and the ubiquitous dread of death are consistent with the deep-rooted Allen opus. You surprisingly don't wish he were a young Woody instead as he injects lots of wide-eyed ingenuousness along with just the right dash of the director's classic nebbish.
Wilson makes Gil so genuine, so keen, about his hero worship of the experiences he's mysteriously introduced to. He can't believe them, the refreshing humility and worldly genius of them. Essentially, he's leading with his nose here. Both it and his performance are engagingly bent, as is commented on subtly in the most brilliant in-joke manner in Brody's scene. That's it. Starting now, no more spoilers of any kind. This is hard for me, but necessary. The trailers don't spoil it, but now the reviews are everywhere and audiences have flocked to it. But by jove I'm doing my part to preserve it for whatever it's worth.
I think of aged burgundy or antique clocks in regard to the spirit of this hilarious and exciting little film. It begins with a montage of postcard-worthy tableaux of the City of Lights in the sunlight, in the rain, and then in the sunlight again. It's a musing, a reverie, clearly. But what gives it such an ebullient sense of wonder is its eternal central theme. The story, in its clear-cut but understated way, proposes that no matter what period we're in, we take its value for granted. So we reflect and see superior days gone by. And yesteryear, naturally, is a discriminatory daydream. Allen's profound esteem for the film's deliciously romantic universe doesn't stop him from giving it an old comic pro's joshing as well. It all works self-assuredly and sublimely on its own conditions.
One would think some moviegoers might be baffled by this annual release from the filmmaker, just as they deeply are by one out of your average three Woody Allen films, since cultural literacy is hardly ever brought to the movies anymore, to say the least. And yet, it's success in theatres is wonderful. Perhaps in an economy like this, just as screwball romantic comedies were celebrated in the Depression, this is the pure ideal for what the movies need more of right now. So many moviegoers take Allen for granted, though Midnight in Paris has and will captivate even the most worn-out old-hand moviegoers. There's nothing not to love about it. Either you relate to it or not.