Veteran writer/director Woody Allen has more than 40 films to his credit, three Oscars and a total of 17 personal nominations. Hollywood A-grade stars fall over themselves to appear in his features, sometimes as little more than cameos.
Yet, extraordinarily, he has struggled in the last decade or so to raise money for his films.
Deemed to be past his best and the golden age of the late 1970s and 1980s (Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters), Midnight in Paris is Allen’s first film to pass $50 million at the North American box-office, in spite of his films receiving Oscar nominations in every decade since the 1970s.
Midnight in Paris
As with many Woody Allen films, the star-studded cast is a dream – Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, Adrian Brody alongside, among others, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen.
Arriving in Paris with his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and her wealthy parents, writer Gil (Wilson) is something of a lost soul. His yearning is for something far deeper than endless shopping trips around antique shops looking to furnish the Californian beach house.
On his first trip to the French capital, Gil is nostalgic for the romanticised Paris of the 1920s, of Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein; of bohemian lifestyle where anything goes. Paris, to Gil, is beautiful in the rain and is a city to live and be inspired. But not to Inez, who would never consider living outside of America.
The Witching Hour
Midnight, however, is the witching hour, and as Gil takes solitary walks around the city, his dreams and inspirations are suddenly a possibility. Party-goers rescue the lost American and introduce him to a world he can only dream about.
Like Gil, we are whisked away to a bohemian world of literati, socialites and artists, and like Gil we are seduced by the magical surrounds of a different Paris, a Paris by night and the backstreet salons, bars and cafes that are the haunts of his new found acquaintances.
Blonde, blue-eyed Texan Owen Wilson plays the neurotic Woody Allen persona surprisingly well, all arm gestures and pithy thinking out loud comments. But it is the demure and elegant Marion Cotillard who steals the show as Adriana, artist’s model and muse who is passed from painter to painter but who befriends the newly arrived American.
Allen shows clearly his love for Paris and of times past, and there is undoubtedly a channeling of the director’s frustration with his home country: the Americans of the early half of the film are portrayed as shallow and blind to the differences of culture around them.
But the film also outstays its welcome and runs out of ideas in the third reel. The comedy is gentle rather than cutting or acerbic, the scenarios repetitive, with Wilson occasionally grating rather than funny or empathetic. But Midnight in Paris is nevertheless an enjoyable, beguiling comedy.
And with the shortage of musicals for the year, Woody Allen may find himself invited to the Golden Globes ceremony with several nominations to his name and possibly the ceremony he is renowned for snubbing – that of the Oscars in February.
Personal rating: 3.5 stars
Midnight in Paris
- Directed by Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Sweet and Lowdown)
- Written by Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Sweet and Lowdown)
- Produced by Letty Aronson (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Match Point), Jaume Roures (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Camino), Stephen Tenenbaum (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger)
- Starring Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers, Night at the Museum), Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes, Morning Glory), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose, Inception)
Keith Lawrence - Published writer of articles in magazines, newspapers and websites, predominantly on culture, alongside ghostwriter/editor/copywriter.
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