'Midnight In Paris' Review - Paris Is Nicest With Woody Allen Around

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates, Tom Hiddleston, Alison Pill, Corey Stoll

Plot: Successful screenwriter Gil (Wilson) travels to Paris with his fiancée (McAdams) and her parents on a business trip. While there Gil finds that he prefers the Paris lifestyle and when he goes through a magical experience at midnight, he is introduced to a whole new world.

I am unfamiliar with Woody Allen films. For reasons I can't explain I have just never ventured into his filmography. It's not because I hate the way he looks or they way he talks, I have just never really come across any before. This means 'Midnight In Paris' is my first experience with the neurotic director and it is by no means a bad place to start. 

Paris is a nice looking place, everyone knows that, but through the lens of Woody Allen it looks simply magical. Having this place as your main setting must be a dream for a director and to have it in different decades in one movie must be an extra treat. And what's that you say,different decades? Yes 'Midnight In Paris' jumps between time periods because when the clock strikes midnight a car pulls up that takes Owen Wilson's Gil to the Golden Age he always dreamed of.

Wilson is great as the screenwriter in a creative lull and it is honestly the first time in years that he has actually acted rather than playing the boring straight man in a comedy i.e. 'Wedding Crashers' and 'Hall Pass'. Gil loves it in Paris. He is completely taken with the majesty of it all and wonders how incredible it must have been in the times when Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso walked down the lantern lit streets. His fiancee, Inez, however is slightly less taken with it as she is, as they say in France, a bit of a bitch. Gil tries to tell her about where he goes at midnight, but she is too busy hanging on every word of the brilliantly arsehole-ish Micheal Sheen.

This is by far the most pleasant film of the year - it just made me feel happy. There is a certain charm to 'Midnight In Paris' that just isn't found in many films, which makes this such a treat. It isn't overly complicated and features some great comedic performances from Adrien Brody, Alison Pill and Corey Stoll who play famous figures that Gil comes across after midnight. These segments are the highlights of the film with it having all the best laughs and just looking so damned beautiful. The present day sequences do have their moments, but I constantly wanted Gil to just get back in that magic car and go speak to Luis Bunuel or T.S.Elliot again.

'Midnight In Paris' couldn't come any more highly recommended. It will just make you feel happy and smack a big smile on your face, you miserable old grump. Great performances, a funny script and Paris makes for a good first Woody Allen film to watch and an apparent career high point for the American. I would find it hard to believe that anyone could dislike this movie - it's just so good. The best parts are obviously the ones in the past, but not so much that I long for Manchester in the 20's. It's not quite the same as Paris.

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