Midnight in Paris Review

Summery
Allen’s confident, masterful direction and writing, combined with a charming performance from Owen Wilson create a heart-warming feel-good film that revels in it’s characters and themes and makes them shine.

Full Review
It might be committing some form of critic suicide to say that up until watching Midnight in Paris, I had never seen a Woody Allen film, but I won’t hesitate in saying that this very unique movie makes me want to explore his work further. And it is, truly, a unique film. There aren’t many films that can get away with not giving a shred of explanation to their central plot point, but Midnight in Paris manages it, indeed, it works to the films advantage.

Midnight in Paris tells the story of Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson, a successful but unfulfilled Hollywood screenwriter, currently making his first tentative foray into the world of fictional literature. He and his fiancé are in Paris, the reason for which is never explicitly stated, again, to the films advantage, and every night at midnight, Gil finds himself able to travel back to the time and place he most wants to be: Paris in the 1920’s. He meets and liaises with famous artists of the time, such as Ernest Hemmingway and Pablo Picasso, and eventually, a beautiful woman named Adrianna, played by Marion Cotillard.

How Gil is able to make time his proverbial “bitch” isn’t explained, and doesn’t need to be, because it isn’t an issue that one fixates over, it’s an irrelevance, taking a backseat to Gil’s nocturnal adventures that bring him such clear joy, one can’t help but revel in the experience with him. Credit must go to Owen Wilson who, while I won’t for a moment pretend that he possesses a modicum of dramatic depth or hasn’t made some truly awful career choices, gives a great performance in a role that admittedly suits him down to the ground. The writing is great as well, and it and Wilson’s performance really bring to life and flesh out Gil as a character. He’s a charming character at the heart of a charming film, and it would take a very hard heart indeed to not experience the infectious feel-good nature that Midnight in Paris exudes. Marion Cotillard gives a good performance as well, and the two have a wonderful chemistry together.

It’s simply a brilliantly well made film from start to finish, every cog in the machine doing it’s job with panache, and Allen fully deserves his Best Director academy award nomination, in addition to it being one of the best written films of the year. The film is also shot beautifully, there are some truly lovely shots of Paris, and the camera knows when to take a step back and when to create a more intimate feel. It can’t be understated what great camerawork can do to suck the viewer into the film, a fact which Midnight in Paris doesn’t ignore, and when it’s combined with Wilson and Cotillard’s great chemistry, it leads to some beautiful scenes, which make up, on the whole, a beautiful film.

Should I see it?
It’s hard to conceive of a type of viewer who wouldn’t enjoy Midnight in Paris from start to finish. Definitely see it.