Now in his seventies and still churning out a film a year, many people have said that Woody Allen’s recent trips to Europe for his films have resulted in some of the better films of his career. Vicky Christina Barcelona lead to an Oscar for Penelope Cruz, and Allen himself considers Match Point to be his best movie. Midnight in Paris, set in (surprise) Paris, looks set to be remembered as one of his more notable movies, not least because it has done absolutely huge (by Allen standards) business so far in the US. At time of writing, it has made just over one hundred million dollars, which is spectacular for a Woody Allen movie and it’s easily the biggest financial hit of his career.
Owen Wilson plays Gil, a successful screenwriter who wants to move on and write novels, indulging his love of all things 1920s. The film focuses on his trip to Paris with his stuck-up wealthy fiancee Inez (Rachel Macadams) and her parents. Frustrated with their company, Gil ventures through the streets of Paris and somehow manages to end up in the 1920s, at the stroke of midnight. It’s here that Gil slowly starts to actually enjoy himself and takes in the company of the likes of Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald amongst others.
In the wrong hands, this would have been a disaster, but then again, nobody but Allen could have written such a story in such a fashion. As a big Allen fan (to the point of writing a thesis on his work) I expected good things from this film and was not let down. Not only is it leaps and bounds above You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (his last movie), it’s funny, sharp and succeeds in just being a very likeable and enjoyable movie, with a fantastic cast and some very memorable characters. Standouts include the always-brilliant Michael Sheen as Paul, an almost unfathomably irritating intellectual, and Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali in one of the film’s most memorable scenes.
Owen Wilson impresses too, in a role that would clearly have been taken by Allen had the movie been made decades ago. His Gil succeeds in having his own identity however, so unlike, say, Larry David in Whatever Works, he’s not a carbon copy of Allen’s on-screen persona, but rather an original character that still has some of that unique sense of humour about him.
Most people associate Allen’s movies with New York, but the Parisian setting of this movie only serves to breathe new life into the director’s sensibilities. There’s enough wit and sharp humour to draw comparisons to some of his earlier, funnier movies, and it’s easily one of the best he has done in recent years – perhaps because he is on somewhat familiar territory as he depicts a man struggling to find what makes him truly happy, a theme he has touched on in many movies. The success of the film isn’t unwarranted either, for whilst it is very much a Woody Allen movie, it has a broad appeal that deserves to be seen by many, not just die-hard Allen fans. So, even if you’ve only ever seen Annie Hall, Midnight in Paris is definitely worth the watch. Throughout his career he has had a number of big hits and similarly big misses, but this one is a fantastic reminder of how good he can be when he’s on form.
