Just didn't get it. One lame joke here - American writer obsessed with a long-bygone romantic Paris - slips through a rip in the fabric of time and meets all the glittering literati of the period, one by boring one. The audience laugh out loud as each old world celebrity is introduced: Scott and Zelda, Hemingway, Picasso, and on and on and on. Suffered an hour of this before finally walking out, gratefully gulping down lungfuls of 2011 diesel flavoure 'oxygen', exhilarated to have escaped such a hackneyed cliche as the American fixation with the Paris of the 1920s.
*CONTAINS SPOILERS*
Already the most commercially successful film of Allen's career, Midnight in Paris follows Hollywood screenwriter turned would-be writer Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) as tourists in Paris with Inez' wealthy, conservative parents. A romantic holiday soon gets the usual fantastical Allen twist when Gil discovers that on a certain Parisian street at midnight he is transported back to 1920s Paris (his favourite place and time, and the inspiration for his novel). He thus begins to spend his nights in the Golden Age, mixing with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein - and his days in 2010 with Inez and her ever more infuriating family and friends. The couple's compatibility is soon called into question when Gil falls in love with Picasso's mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose) and is forced to reconsider his relationship with Inez; in his words: 'we do agree on some things....we both like Indian food. Well, not all Indian food....but we both like naan'. But as wonderful as the 1920s seem in comparison with twenty-first century life, Gil eventually realises that he has to face up to the present, and decides to return to 2010 for good in order to make it the year he wants it to be.
The cast provide first-rate acting and Wilson in particular does an excellent job, perfectly replicating the twitch and stutter of the great master. There are genuinely hilarious moments and Corey Stoll's portrayal of Hemingway is laugh-out-loud funny. One gag which particularly tickled the audience comes when Gil, complaining about being caught between two time zones, asks for help from Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel and Man Ray. When Ray responds that this is not a problem but an experience shared by everyone, Gil's expression is priceless, and his response 'oh but come on you guys, you're surrealists!'
In a recent interview for BBC Radio 4, Allen confessed to having his own feelings of nostalgia for France: 'If I didn't live in New York, Paris is the place I would live.' That the director himself is as much in love with Paris as his protagonist is obvious from the many beautiful shots of the city. If the film's 'head' shouts 'live for the present', its heart adds, '(as long as your present is in Paris)'. And although the fascination with Paris in this film is peculiarly American, it's enough to convert even the British spectator to the belief that if the grass wasn't greener in the past, it must at least be greener on the other side of the Channel.
