Midnight in Paris

It really does not take much to make me happy. The words Woody Allen always make me happy, and without knowing anything about this film, I knew I would watch it, and I knew I would enjoy it. Woody Allen does one thing better than anyone else in Hollywood just edging out Tarantino. Dialogue. He is a master with words, much like The Jester, though I am not even in the same atmosphere as Mr. Allen. He is concise and poignant. He knows how people talk, and it comes across so well. He always gets actors who will do justice to his work. I will admit, I have not been the biggest Owen Wilson fan of late, but he was the part. With Woody Allen, you don't screen test. He knows who he wants, tells that person and they accept. No one turns down Woody. I imagine the same went for Midnight in Paris. Owen plays Gil. A romantic with extreme love for Paris. His fiance' Inez (McAdams) is more of a realist, but she does support Gil in his current venture. Gil is a Hollywood screenwriter who has made a name for himself writing comedies and sit-com's and what not. He has decided to change his life and write a novel. It turns out harder than he had imagined. While vacationing in Paris, he claims he would live there, but Inez is less enthusiastic, so like every other idea Men have had in the past, this one also is rejecting by the female counterpart. What we always get from Allen's film is honest uncomfortable situations. Inez and Gil are on vacation with 2 of HER friends and HER parents, which Gil doesn't mind in small doses, but that is not what he gets. More of an overdose than anything else. Her parents add the most comic relief, especially when Gil and her Father get into conversation, but the man that cannot be outdone is Michael Sheen. He plays the know it all, loves to hear his own voice, professor of all things worldly, can't be wrong Paul. Gil's issue with him above all else is the fact that Inez is obsessed with him. He is the show stealer especially when he is challenged by "Lesser" people. When Gil has had enough of the group, he goes for a midnight stroll and this is when it gets interesting. He is picked up by an old car and taken to a "speak easy" of sorts. He thinks he has been taken to a 20's era costume party, but when he is introduced to his literary idols Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald he begins to freak out, though not visibly to anyone around him. He goes along with it, and soon realizes this is real. When morning comes he knows he must get back to the 20's and his new friends. The movie then turns into, what Inez believes, to be the ramblings of a mad man. Every night at midnight he gets back to that period and the people he meets just keeps expanding. Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), T.S. Eliot, and Adriana (Marion Cotillard). She is the real reason he keeps up his travels. He is torn between his reality and their reality. He loves all of his new friends, but is it even an option to abandon them for a simpler time? These are the questions he must answer to himself. This was a really cute, sweet, 90 minute solid movie. Chalk another one up for Woody Allen. I do understand Wood Allen is a Love him or Hate him writer/Director and this film is no different. If you don't like him, don't watch Midnight in Paris.

NBM rates Midnight in Paris - Phenomenal