Midnight in Paris DVD

A magical romantic comedy starring Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris pays nostalgic tribute to the city of love. Happily, it's Woody without a foot placed wrong, says Peter Wild.

It’s refreshing that after a great many years, during which Woody Allen fans had to sometimes work quite hard to defend the reputation of the great man (Cassandra’s Dream had … uhm … a good performance from Tom Wilkinson, Scoop had a nice cameo from Ian McShane etc), to be able to say, here, at last, is the first great Woody Allen movie since Sweet and Lowdown.

Like Sweet and Lowdown or, for that matter, the Gatsby-esque narrator of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris is an old-fashioned sort of film. This is a movie for anyone who is likely to be swept up by Fred Astaire in Top Hat or Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. In other words, it’s that rare beast – a film like the films they used to make, before all of the swearing and the car chases and the CGI and the explosions.

Owen Wilson is Gil, a screenwriter who has come to Paris to finish up his novel, whether his novel likes it or not. Gil is a romantic, the latest in a long, long line of Woody romantics (he romanticises Paris out of all proportion, to paraphrase a line from Manhattan) – a feeling not shared by his catty fiancé Inez, or her parents who think she can do a lot better.

Left to wander around the city at night, Gil seemingly lucks across a hole in the fabric of time that transports him back to 1920s Paris in the company of Picasso, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, Ernest Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds (Tom Hiddleston, Alison Pill), eliciting novel advice from the likes of Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and almost falling in love with Marion Cotillard’s Adriana along the way.

It’s a confection to be sure, a frothy amuse bouche of a film, and yet there is great delight to be had in just seeing Allen get it all so right. Midnight in Paris is Woody without a foot placed wrong. It also uses a fantastical device, as the incomparable Purple Rose of Cairo did, in a subtle and nuanced way that will have you silently applauding the fact that he can still pull a smasher out of the bag when he really tries.

For the first time in a long time, we can all look forward to his next (Nero Fiddled, starring Ellen Page and Jesse Eisenberg) with a smaller measure of trepidation.

Peter Wild on 18th January 2012
Author of 99 reviews