The magic has returned! With the music of Cole Porter and the beauty of the city providing all the necessary aural and visual backdrop, Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” is a glorious, mystical, bright-hearted movie that reflects his best days. While it might not be as fine as some of his early works, it’s far more enjoyable than some films he’s given us in recent years.
A dreaming Everyman in those days, Allen has cast Owen Wilson in the role that he often played, and Wilson surprised me with how effective he was as a Hollywood writer dreaming of literary fame who is visiting Paris with his fiancee (Rachel McAdams) and her boring parents, who are mixing pleasure with business on the visit. They may be boring, but a friend named Paul (Michael Sheen) is one of those people who knows everything about everything and is happy to lecture endlessly on any subject. Gil (that’s Wilson) dreams of Paris in the past, when the City of Light gleamed, and arts talent of every sort looked better in it.
So he’s standing on a street corner late one night. A clock strikes 12, and a spectacular Peugot limousine comes around the corner and stops. A lovely woman (Allison Pill) waves him inside and introduces herself as Zelda Fitzgerald. Her husband, F. Scott (Tom Hiddleston) is in the car and they’re on their way to a party. Cole Porter (Yves Heck) is playing the piano. Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) is on hand. It helps, by he way, to have some familiarity with names from the ’20s as Gil repeats his journey to the past again and again.
He convinces Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to read his novel. He develops a crush on Adriana (the elegant Marion Cotillard), who is carrying on with both Hemingway and Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo). He suggests film subjects to Man Ray and Luis Bunuel, admires Josephine Baker and Djuna Barnes, watches Salvador Dali (the absolutely perfect Adrien Brody), meets T. S. Eliot.
When Adriana says she’s bored with the ’20s and wishes she had lived during La Belle Epoque (1890-1914) when things were really hopping, Gil’s muse makes the necessary arrangements and we’re back to the Folies Bergere, in the company of such as Pierre Matisse, Edgar Degas, Paul Gaugin and, of course, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Allen keeps a strong hand on his story, keeping it from descending into cheap trash but allowing dreams to develop nicely while holding everything under good control. Cinematographer Darius Khondji gives Paris the golden glow that everyone who visits or dreams of the city will recognize immediately. The ensemble work is first-rate and Allen strikes a perfect balance between reality and fantasy. A film with much charm.
Midnight in Paris oens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe