Midnight in Paris

Cecil says:

I hadn’t seen a Woody Allen film for years. Not, in fact, since the whole saga over his thing about young girls, and the creepy way he continued to play the lead male in his own films opposite some gorgeous young thing. But Midnight in Paris was on at the right time in the right cinema – the Athena in Athens, Ohio (not quite what it once was, when it opened in 1915, since it’s now divided into three screens, but great that it’s still there on the main street in downtown Athens).

The film begins with beautiful shots of Paris: the places, buildings and sights we all love; and the atmosphere that just seems to fill the air for anyone who has ever been there.

But then two things happen early on that take time to adjust to: is that Woody Allen walking across the square in a Hitchcock-style appearance at the end of those opening shots? And then meet the new Woody Allen: Owen Wilson, who plays aspiring writer Gil, is just Woody Allen in a different body. He manages the delivery, the body language, the personality, which were Woody Allen on screen for three decades, and he manages it extraordinarily well.

As to the plot: this aspiring writer is engaged to the wrong woman; they’re in Paris with her parents, whose focus is money and shopping. Gil has a dream, and loves Paris just for being Paris.

He wanders off alone one night and finds himself picked up by some friendly folk in a very old-fashioned car and whisked off to a party where he first meets Zelda, and then Scott…And suddenly he finds himself back in the 1920s, his golden era; the time he would have liked to live in if he could choose.

It’s a kind of cleverer Goodnight Sweetheart (UK TV series), as he gets to meet all the creative, arty thinkers and artists of the period, all of whom lived in or had a connection to Paris. Meanwhile he goes back during the day to his misfit pre-marriage disconnection with his fiancée and her family.

I too love the 20s for style and image, though it’s also true, as the film tries to tell us, that really we don’t know how life would have been in comparison to our own time, because we have no perspective on our own era, and only have distance from the older time.

It’s a great story with some lovely touches (Bunuel being given a tip for a film script; Hemingway constantly being driven to be so manly). One or two slightly ‘unbelievable’ touches like the young couple Gil tries to stop who speak ‘no English’ (unheard of in modern-day Paris); and the Polidor restaurant, which I know and love, being used for the 1920s scenes, but then Gil goes back there during the day and it has become a launderette…Only we know different, don’t we?

Still, minor lapses that take nothing away from a thoroughly enjoyable evening

****

Bea says: This is how to do romantic comedy, Paul Feig and Jake Kasden (see recent reviews of Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher)! A light touch, a good eye, a good story, a bit of intellectual clout for those of us who like to think a bit as well, and it leaves you feeling good. Pretty much perfect.

****