Midnight in Paris: Film Review

Image taken from filmofilia.com 

9/10

Woody Allen will have you falling in love with a romanticized version of Paris. He will take you back and forth in time, creating a travelogue narrative of Paris in the past and present.

Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) travel to Pairs with her obnoxiously patriotic American family. While Gil finds himself completely absorbed with every element of the city, Inez asserts her indifference, insisting she could never picture herself living outside the United States.

The longer Gil spends in Paris, the more he falls in love. He questions his current Hollywood lifestyle as a successful screenwriter, feeling as though Paris is where he belongs.

This is where Woody Allen kicks in and makes the film distinctively his own.

Before the viewer can absorb what has happened, you discover that Gil has traveled back in time, into a supernatural world where he encounters iconic men and women of the past.  He mingles with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, and other prominent figures in art, literature, and history. He learns from this men and women about life in the 1920’s and how the age old saying, the grass is always greener, has some truth behind it.

Whether or not Woody Allen is suggesting that Gil’s time traveling is a figment of his imagination, or that some inexplicable phenomenon is occurring, remains uncertain and irrelevant -- it’s purpose is to teach Gil a valuable lesson about life and love.

The film is poetic and comedic, intellectual and witty.  Owen Wilson creates a character that is thought provoking, witty, and incredibly mature compared to what we are used to seeing from him as a character.

Midnight in Paris has a star-studded cast that includes Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Carla Bruni, Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody, and Marion Cotillard.

You’ll fall in love with Woody Allen, Owen Wilson, and likely Paris all at once.