Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris

Written and directed by Woody Allen

With: Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams,

Michael Sheen, Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddelston, Alison Pill, Corey Stoll, Kurt Fuller,

Mimi Kennedy, and Lea Seydoux

If you love Paris when it sizzles, you will love Woody Allen’s captivating and smart “Midnight in Paris.” The film is packaged throughout with exquisite daytime Paris scenes bathed in golden light as well as nighttime scenes shrouded in mists and cobbled streets wet with rain. This film is another of Allen’s valentines to Paris. Air France must be delighted with the release of this film.

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is the quintessential American in Paris. He and his fiancée, Ines, are accompanying her parents on one of her father’s business trips. Gil is a successful but frustrated hack Hollywood screen writer who hates what he does. He is working on a novel about nostalgia. Spoiled Ines’s only goal is to live in Malibu on Gil’s residuals while he would be delighted to live in an artist’s garret in Paris. Unfortunately for Gil, they run into Paul, a smug and pedantic professor friend of Ines, and have to spend time with him. Ines thinks Paul is great; Gil thinks he is pompous and pretentious. Gil and Ines seem ill suited for each other.

But Gil lucks out as “Midnight in Paris” takes an unexpected turn. Escaping from Ines’

boring friends, Gil wanders the streets of Paris. At the stroke of midnight, an

ancient Rolls Royce pulls up and its occupants, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, urge Gil to come to a soiree with them. He finds himself at a lost generation party alongside Cole Porter, Ernest Hemmingway, Salvador Dali and others. Since Gil’s specialty is nostalgia, this is right up his alley. He is understandably awestruck, enchanted and almost speechless—but not totally speechless because he asks both Hemingway and Gertrude Stein to read his manuscript. 

Nothing lasts forever, however,and  Gil has to come back to present time and spend time with temperamental Ines and her grouchy Tea Party member parents, whose main interests seem to be shopping and eating in expensive restaurants.  

This is Woody Allen at his best. Nostalgia has repeatedly been a theme for him. The story is loaded with stars and a celebrity or two. Even Carla Bruni, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife has a part in this oh so Francophile film. “Midnight in Paris” is filmed exquisitely with tantalizing views of the Eiffel tower, Monmartre, the flea markets, the Seine and, of course, the cafes and bistros.

Each cast member shines. They obviously love the film and the chance to impersonate literary giants and artists of the 1920s. Owen Wilson could not be better. He embodies the Woody Allen persona, a man full of self-doubt, dissatisfied with many things. Mostly he longs to inhabit a bygone era and to be able to have the challenging and intellectual conversations absent from his present life with Ines.

Time travel may be a wacky concept but it seamlessly works in “Midnight and Paris,” something not easy to pull off. But Allen succeeds. All of this is silly and fun. And, of course, it is always entertaining to see how many stars Allen can squeeze into a film. And did I mention how very romantic it is?