Midnight In Paris

This is Woody Allen’s love letter to Paris. A wonderful film, one of his very best, which is saying a lot, because Woody is a cinematic treasure. Owen Wilson plays Gil, the Woody-esque character in this film. To Owen’s credit he speaks the lines that Woody Allen would have said, but without completely surrendering his own take on the character. Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter with literary ambitions. He wants to write a proper novel and he wants to live in Paris. He feels a nostalgic connection to the Paris of the twenties, when the city was home to great American writers such as Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. Gil is on holiday in Paris with his soon to be bride and her parents, people from whom he should run as far away as possible. Through some unexplained magic Gil is transported back to the twenties, where he meets his literary heroes and also other artists such as Picasso and the film-maker Louis Bunuel. There are many in-jokes involving the famous literary and artistic characters. Often we feel a sense of nostalgia that is probably false for a by-gone era, particularly for one that we have not lived through ourselves. We see it as a golden age, far more satisfactory than the time we are living in, with all its banality. The Paris for which Gil longs is long gone and can never be regained. Nonetheless, there is much left to love about the Paris of 2011. The film opens with a long series of present day street scenes, breathtaking in their beauty. No matter where you live or whether you ever go there, we can take great comfort from knowing that a place like Paris still exists in the world.