Charlie Gets His Woody Back

Allen satisfies with a triumphant return to form

(June 16, 2011) Reviews

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. I’m in love with Woody Allen again. A committed devotee, I felt betrayed and abandoned by You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger last year. I’m happy to report, though, that the makeup sex provided by Midnight in Paris really is the best. Allen’s latest is completely captivating, entertaining and seductive.

Mignight in Paris

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The film’s premise is simple yet it yields a plot of lovely conceits and some complexity. After a loving series of stills of Paris, the viewer is introduced to a group of Americans in the city for business. Tagging along is Gil Pender (Owen Wilson, perfectly embodying the Woody Allen character) who, alone in the group, loves Paris and wants to settle there. A successful Hollywood screen writer, Gil aspires to be a “real” writer and has written a novel about the owner of a nostalgia shop.

His fiancée Inez (played with great bitchy brio by Rachel McAdams) along with her parents are consistently condescending to both the French and to Gil, but Gil finds an unusual refuge. Trying to get back to his hotel after getting a little drunk at a tedious party, he gets lost and ends up sitting on some steps. As bells toll midnight, a Twenties-model car stops and invites him along, magically, to 1920s Paris.

As it turns out, ‘20s Paris is Gil’s “golden age” and it fulfills all of his nostalgic fantasies. He meets Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Dali (Adrien Brody), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), who agrees to read his novel, and a host of other artists and writers. But, in particular, he meets Adriana (the wonderful and as always pitch-perfect Marion Cotillard), a sensual woman who has systematically worked her way through all the artists but who finds Gil naïve and refreshing. Gil, discontent with Inez, falls hard and imagines a beautiful romantic life with Adrianna in his golden age.

But that would be too easy and, as it turns out, Adrianna has her own golden age — the “Belle Époque” of 1890s Paris. Ultimately, though, it is a shared enthusiasm for Cole Porter (played by Yves Heck) with young shop owner Gabrielle (a charming Léa Seydoux) that points Gil to his actual golden age.

As usual in an Allen film, the acting is uniformly excellent, with Wilson being the biggest surprise for me. And look for French First Lady Carla Bruni as a museum guide.

Midnight in Paris made me fall in love with movies all over again. With a nod to the Beach Boys, I’m led to say, “I wish they all could be Woody Allen films.” Gil’s golden age may not have panned out, but his golden city did. I can certainly relate to that. PG-13. 94m. At the Broadway.

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