Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Review of Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris

Winner of the 2012 Golden Globe for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Nominated for three Academy Awards - Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay

 

Woody Allen’s, Midnight in Paris is a romantic, funny, quirky, quasi-comedy set in Paris. The film begins with a beautiful montage tribute of picture-postcard images of Paris set to a traditional jazz score. In this film, Owen Wilson takes on the role as Gil, a disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter who comes to Paris with his gorgeous fiancĂ©e Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. Idolizing the bohemian Paris of the 1920s, Gil finds that the city has revived his dormant longing to be a serious novelist. One night, while strolling alone in the city, Gil sees a mysterious antique vehicle roll up and its champagne-swilling occupants urge him to jump in. He travels back in time with them to a party where he encounters F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Cole Porter and falls in love with Picasso's mistress, played by Marion Cotillard. Wilson plays the role exactly right: bemused and excited, while Cotillard has delicacy and charm. There are real laughs and enchanting cameos but when the action returns to the present, the movie begins to fizzle, and I have to say the final, crucial confrontation between Gil and Inez isn’t believable. But for simple pleasure, the sort of reliably stimulating pleasure Allen use to deliver in his films - sophisticated wit … Midnight in Paris does well. In the present, the film disappoints a bit but in the past, it zips along quite nicely. So perhaps it's the fantasy/ nostalgic theme of this movie, the retreat from the present day that has restored Allen to past days of brilliance. This film may not be a return to those days for Allen, but it's a vivid reminder of them. 

Release – 2011 by Sony Pictures
Run time – 1 hour 34 minutes
Written/ director – Woody Allen
Cast - Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston

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