Film Review: Midnight in Paris

There's no time like the past, and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris raises a glass to the deliciously decadent days of la ville d l'amour during the 1920s, in a tale of time-traveling two-timing. But amid this celebration of times gone by, the notion of nostalgia is put to the test: Were things really better back then or are we just another generation of golden-age thinkers?  

Owen Wilson is Gil, a Hollywood scriptwriter who's had an epiphany. Holidaying in Paris with wife-to-be Inez (Rachel McAdams) and the in-laws, Gil realizes he should eschew his life of comfort and vapidity for bohemian Paris, where he'll finally get his novel down on paper, and get to spend some quality time "walking in the rain" (you know you're a romantic when you value poetry over risk of pneumonia). Inez, however, isn't exactly seduced by the idea, and Gil's actions will take him farther away from her than he could ever have imagined.

If you've seen the trailer for Midnight in Paris, you only have the slightest idea of the twist that happens soon after Gil's rebirth as flaneur-by-night. Just as Allen's 1972 film Play It Again, Sam summons the inimitable Bogey back from the grave to play modern-day mentor, so in Midnight in Paris Gil finds himself transported back to the Lost Generation of post-WWI expat Paris, a time of flappers and the Charleston, Hemingway and Stein.  

That the line between dream and reality is blurred, and that you could list enough plot holes to sink a ship, matters not a jot. At the heart of Allen's film is a character we care about a great deal - and that's saying something, seeing he's a wealthy Hollywood hack. Why is Gil so lovable? Wilson embodies certain idiosyncrasies of Allen's: the impish candidness, the insatiable self-deprecation, the general jitteriness. It's as if Allen is channeling himself directly through the younger actor, and that's no bad thing.

There's actually little pretension to Gil's Livin' La Vida Boheme fantasy; rather, he's like a kid in a candy store: Should he get his manuscript critiqued by Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald? Go out dancing with Joséphine Baker or sit around the piano with Cole Porter? This is the stuff dreams are made of, and given the same situation, we'd become the star-struck noctambulist Gil is.

Midnight in Paris does not abuse intellectuality to choke the audience; indeed, genius is somewhat mocked, what with Hemingway's (Corey Stoll) po-faced lectures about real writers not being afraid of death, while Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody) harps on about Rhinoceroses (the funniest part of the film). This film is after all, not about intellectuality, it's about finding your true love, your true home. As long as you've heard of a book called The Great Gatsby and know Picasso painted strangely shaped ladies, you'll understand Midnight in Paris just fine.

Speaking of ladies, for the soft soul that he is, Gil has a certain way with them, as we see when he falls for intoxicating scenester and mistress of both Picasso and Hemingway, Adrianna (Marion Cotillard, who really does look like she belongs in 1920s Paris). Outlandish though it is, Gil's affair with the flapper, stealing her from under the noses of both geniuses, is a sweet and compelling love story: doomed, yes, futile, no.

Alas, with Wilson and his artsy buddies hogging the limelight, there's not much breathing space for Michael Sheen's bearded pseudo-intellectual Paul, a dazzlingly pedantic snob living back in real-time Paris, who's charming the pants off Inez while her fiancé is out on his nocturnal escapades. For all the wit of the literary illuminati, it's Paul's devious digs at Gil that are the film's most indelible lines.

The long-awaited appearance of Carla Bruni is also a transient affair, although what we see of the First Mademoiselle of France playing a friendly tour guide suggests we might not have seen the last of her acting career.

In Midnight in Paris, Allen strikes a double blow of emotions. Every one of us is nostalgic for another time, one where we feel we'd have fit in more comfortably. But, as Allen is eager to point out, we should seize every day we're blessed with and accept today for what it is. Though this film is frillier than a cancan petticoat, it's impossible not to be turned on by its charm, its lure of decadence, romance and pure escapism. Mr. Allen, it would seem, has transported himself back to the golden age of his own filmmaking. 

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com