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Woody Allen has usually been influenced by the women in his life; we tend to feel their presence in all his movies. His early 1970's films are tinged with Diane Keaton's zany frivolity, his 80's films with Mia Farrow's sophistication, etc. It was an unfortunate turn of events that in 1993, he met another woman. Soon Yi Previn seems like a perfectly nice person, but she's not about to win a "Best Muse" award any time soon, and it doesn't take a mathematical chart to demonstrate the nose-dive in quality taken by Allen's work post-1995 when the two married; Soon Yi is sweet but simple, and Allen's films became as such.After a decade-and-a-half of misjudgment, however, the Woodsman seems to have found another sort of muse. This time, it isn't a woman. It's a place, and a time. The place is Paris, and the time: the 1920's. His Midnight in Paris is an ode to Paris' extraordinary beauty, and to the Jazz age, when the city experienced one of the greatest convergences of culture that any time or place has ever seen. Hemmingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, and countless others populated the City of Lights, and in this beautiful and charming new film, we meet up with all of them.
The story begins in the present, as Gil Pender (Owen Wilson, owning the "Woody Allen" role better than any other actor before him - sans Woody Allen - has done) and his fiance Inez (Rachel MacAdams) tour Paris in the last week before their wedding. He's a profitable but self-described "hack" screenwriter who regrets never having stayed in Paris years earlier to work on a novel. She's an American pragmatist who loves the house in Malibu and is content for her soon-to-be husband to make millions by punching up the next X-Men movie. One night, Gil decides to walk the Parisian streets in search of inspiration and a 1920's car of revelers drives by. Several flappers beckon him in, and before he knows it, he's entering a swingin' nightclub and shaking hands with Zelda and Scott.
The story's right out of Alice in Wonderland, of course, and those familiar with Woody's enchanting 1990 flick Alice, starring Mia Farrow - or even his Purple Rose of Cairo, also starring Farrow - will recall some similarities. This film is on par with that earlier work, and even a little wiser. As Gil encounters all the literary and artistic luminaries of the past, he receives a schooling in culture that no textbook could ever give him. To hear Hemmingway (Corey Stoll) and Stein (the sublime Kathy Bates) banter about words as though we're in the room with them is a great treat, and Owen Wilson really does a splendid job as Gil: the fresh faced modern man who's beyond-thrilled to be cast into his academic fantasy.
McAdams' Inez, however, is understandably much less thrilled. As Gil stumbles home dazed and drunk from his midnight excursions with TS. Elliot and Salvador Dali (a scene-stealing turn by Adrien Brody), there's the real possibility that Inez, who has no clue what's going on, will lose him to the 1920's.
Allen also tosses in a 1920's Parisian flame, Adriana (Marion Cotillard) for good measure. Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Dali and Cole Porter are reasons enough to head back to the past, but Cotillard makes it kind of a no-brainer. As the two begin to strike up a love affair, Allen surrounds us with the most breathtaking shots of Paris, looking no less gorgeous today, as in the Jazz Age.
In fact, the first five minutes of the movie are devoted to images of Paris - magnificently presented with the same fetish as New York in the opening frames of Allen's own Manhattan (1980) - and is perhaps the most luscious travelogue that city's ever gonna get.
The one fault of Midnight in Paris, is that the ending isn't quite what it should be, although Allen does indeed save his biggest laugh - an ingenious cutaway gag - just before the last five minutes. After the 1920's part of the story is concluded, the fun behind the movie dips and not even the gorgeous Lea Seydoux, can bring it back. The good stuff, however, cries to be seen.
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