Midnight in Paris (2011)

We begin with shots of Paris (yes, some of them in the rain) and I think I'm looking at a travelogue; but I'm wrong. Once it gets going this film is very witty and even whimsical at times, and I really enjoyed it. Woody Allen's writing is spot on here with some great dialogue and some marvellous characters. The plot has just the right amount of mystery to keep me interested and even has some important points about living your life in the past. All the performances were excellent with Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard getting top marks from me. Over all I found it very entertaining, amusing and even a little profound in placesÂ… Well worth a look!

SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

My score: 8.5/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

Fmovies: "Paris, France is exciting and peaceful." Gertrude Stein

Welcome to the world of Woody Allen as he has always loved it: nostalgic, romantic, imperfect, and full of hope. Midnight in Paris is one of his finest treatises on the lure and delusions of the past: Like Zelig it depicts other times, like Purple Rose of Cairo it uses magic realism to deal squarely with the present. Allen has another of his surrogates, this time Gil (Owen Wilson),who virtually experiences the past (the twenties) while dealing with the troublesome present.

Gil, engaged to marry Inez (Rachel McAdams), is with her and her parents on business in Paris where he hopes to work on his novel while he is still a successful Hollywood writer. Although she is a materialist who would like him to become wealthy to enjoy the life his parents are used to, he dreams of escaping the hack work of LA and living in the City of Lights for inspiration, just as his idols Fitzgerald and Hemingway did in the roaring twenties.

Well, the twenties roar back to him as he experiences their friendship and the mentoring of Gertrude Stein, among just a few of the many expatriate luminaries he meets through the magic of nostalgia. Just one of the Allen signature touches that make him the equal of great European directors such as Rohmer and Godard is opening the film with music that reflects the allure of the twenties, the romance of Paris, and his abiding love for this city: "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere" by Sidney Bechet combines jazz, the clarinet, the twenties, and Allen with a romantic nostalgia.

Owen Wilson catches the halting diffidence of the typical Allen persona without slavishly imitating him. Yet whatever little duplication Wilson employs endears as he sweetly visits his heroes, falls in love, and comes to terms with his writer's voice and his mismatched engagement. But that engagement is the troublesome present; the past offers the chance to experience history on a human level that only someone who writes for now and reveres the past can do.

The magic and the realism, both requiring hard work from the protagonist, lead to surprising understanding of human nature, the delusion of nostalgia and Paris, and hope for a present that brings love and inspiration.

"For all we know, Paris might be the hottest place in the universe." (Gil)

It's been at least a decade since I have enjoyed an Allen movie this much.

Quite a lot of great lines carrying life's wisdom; Profound reflection and insight of living the precious present expressed in a light-hearted touch! If you have your own 'Golden Age' fantasy, you will likely enjoy it. This movie seems to be relatively more straightforward in communicating its message than some of Allen's other works, such as "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger." As a plus, lovely cinematography of the city of Paris - Mr. Allen has apparently fallen in love with the 'good old (and charming)' European major cities; e.g., London, Paris, Barcelona and etc. Very likely, you will leave the movie theater with a big and warm smile on your face...

Midnight in Paris fmovies. Midnight in Paris is a subtle romantic drama with a comical touch that has a little bit of almost everything: be it magic-realism, romance, phantasm, voyeur, surrealism or even noir. It wouldn't be a hyperbole to proclaim that everything that Woody Allen learned and gained during his long stint in cinema culminated in form of Midnight in Paris – An ode to the City of Love, and its most celebrated denizens of the past. Driven by the very impetus that gives cinema its resonant charm, Woody Allen the auteur has seen his art go from strength to strength, taking new shapes and forms, being completely oblivious of the existence of his larger than life alter ego, Woody Allen the showman, whose stimulating works have been a treat for us all for last so many decades, and who himself has been a force to reckon with, right throughout his long and illustrious career that still seems to be in its prime.

I have grown up watching works of legendary Dev Anand, whose iconic movie career spanned well over six decades. Being an Indian, I guess it comes naturally to one! The first that I heard of Woody Allen was when someone eloquently referred to Dev Sahab as the Indian Woody Allen. It indeed seemed revolting! A showman, whom not only you but also your grandparents have grown up watching being compared to some run-of-the- mill movie maker form the Occident. But, it did succeed in getting me hooked. Today, I find the comparison to be much more apt. Dev Sahab was oblivious to the changing trends in the India Cinema, and remained royal to his idiosyncratic style. The same can be said about Mr. Allen, who became the champion of a resurgent parallel stream in American Cinema— inspired by the avant garde works of European auteurs like Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman—while others kept busy figuring out their new roles in rapidly changing American movie circles.

Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris Vintage Woody Allen, watching Midnight in Paris is like savoring the great city of Paris from the eyes of Mr. Allen himself. Midnight in Paris made an emphatic debut at the 2011 Cannes Festival, and succeeded in leaving a lasting impact on most of those present at the screening. During a press conference at Cannes, Woody Allen had said that he wanted to show the city of Paris emotionally, and wanted it to be the way he himself sees it, and he indeed succeeds in fulfilling his dream by bringing the city to life, thanks to his perspicacious eye.

Midnight in Paris presents a chapter in the life of a successful but disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), who yearns to break the shackles of monotony by writing a fiction novel, but is perplexed by his slender prospects as a writer beyond the glamour and razzmatazz of the sequestered world of Hollywood, while he is out on a vacation to the breeding ground of creativity and talent, Paris, and accompanying him are his ravishing fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and his affluent future in-laws. The perfunctory relationship that Gil shares with his fiancée seems to be a result of Inez' perpetually disinterested outlook towards Gil's ambition of graduating into a full- fledged writer by making a foray into fiction writing. The beauty of Midnight in Paris is that it poses several questions, and while many of them may be answered in the due course of the movie, the true onus truly lies with the viewer to fathom the reality based on his own understanding. One major question that would continuously perplex the viewer is whether it is the yearn

I loved this movie! It blends film noir with Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and a bit of Annie Hall. The scenes of Paris were enough to make one fall in love. The music was superb! Having all the artists and writers show up was the ultimate name dropping contest! Their caricatures were hysterical! Casting Adrien Brody as Salvatore Dali was mind blowing, along with the surreal discussion about a rhino.

I think Owen Wilson is the best Woody Allen by far. He has a kind of naivete that seems to fit perfectly with who Woody seems to be and the combination of Owen's good looks with Woody's humor is riveting!

Of course the "nostalgia" theme and the -I really want to be somewhere else because it's too boring here- give the story a whole other layer of meaning. For we artists and writers it's one of the things that sparks our creativity, so I loved this discussion and the never ending unraveling the story provokes. While he's entertaining you, getting you to laugh hysterically about it all, you're actually getting the point he's trying to make! There is no one who is so brilliant! Enjoy!

I'd been meaning to watch Midnight in Paris for ages but, I have to confess, I was put off by the presence of Owen Wilson, who I could not really envisage as the lead in a Woody Allen film. He was actually surprisingly good though and did a decent job as the vessel from which Allen's brilliant dialogue could be heard. However, this is not an actor-driven film or even a story-driven film; its beauty lies in the simple but clever script and the easy-going laid-back style that you'd expect from a Woody Allen film all about nostalgia.

To be fair, I can completely understand why there have been so many negative reviews of Midnight in Paris. There isn't a great deal going on superficially and the characters are all gloriously stereotypical. This doesn't matter though because, although the film is quite simple, it is at the same time wonderfully clever and thought-provoking. However, you do probably have to be in the right mood to watch it. I saw this film on a lazy Saturday afternoon and wasn't expecting too much, so when I was left both entertained and thinking about the past, the present and the future, it was a pleasant surprise. There are few films these days that still have you thinking about them several days later – this is definitely one of them. What do you want from life, with whom do you want to experience it, and why are we always so dissatisfied with where we are and what we've got? Like I say, quite thought-provoking!

It's incredibly ironic that some critics go on about how Woody Allen films aren't anywhere near as good as they were back in the seventies and that he's a has-been pseudo-intellectual, when here he is making a film about nostalgia and poking fun at pseudo-intellectuals in both an obvious and also a more subtle manner. Midnight in Paris is full of self-parody and interesting contradictions, but not everything is immediately apparent and I believe that some viewers of the film may have simply taken it at face value and consequently been left thinking "is that it then?".

On a slightly more negative side, I am perplexed that some people have praised the cinematography and the wonderful images of Paris in the light, in the dark and in the rain. To me, the use of colour and imagery are not too impressive and I would argue that Paris has looked far better in plenty of other films. The music can be a little annoying too – especially in the opening sequence, which seems to go on for ever!

As I said before though, Midnight in Paris is primarily about the dialogue and the interesting ideas that it throws out to the audience. Catch them if you like, and run with them. It's a great easy-going relaxing film that'll hopefully leave you both entertained and thought- provoked.

8/10