Midnight in Paris - so THAT'S what everyone's been raving about!

He had me at Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. 

From the start of Woody Allen’s latest effort, “Midnight in Paris”, I was hooked.  Sometimes film magic happens, and this is one of those instances.  He could have put Kate Hudson in it and I wouldn’t have minded.

I’ve always been a big fan of a director not pandering down to his audiences, and Woody certainly doesn’t do that here.  His Parisian landscape is full of references to artists and playwrights, literary juggernauts presented almost exactly as I’d imagined them from their stories – even though the actors themselves are all familiar.

The writing made me laugh out loud several times, which is something that I never do in a film.  Usually only British films can make me laugh, or perhaps an old slapstick.  Perhaps that’s where I found the charm – I’ve always thought of the 20s and the 30s as “my era”, a time of raunchy partying with stunning dresses where you basically dance (and drink) your life away.  Never mind that pesky little stock market thing in ’29.

This is a film of details – the costumes are perfect, the casting is perfect, the script is perfect.  Usually I’m not a big fan of the two leads – Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.  I’d read that Woody didn’t even know who they were until he was flipping channels and found “Wedding Crashers”, and decided they’d be perfect.  And they are.

Owen Wilson plays the funny guy that we always knew he could be, the sympathetic, bumbling hero clearly about to marry the wrong girl, who just wants to appease everyone.  McAdams plays the bitchy fiancée, led about by her parents and their money and mesmerized by Paul (played wonderfully by Michael Sheen), who has got to be the most intentionally pretentious character I’ve ever seen portrayed in film.  Paul’s an expert in EVERYTHING.  I found him hysterical because there are people I know just like him.

But at the heart of the movie is Paris itself.  The film is an ode to Paris, similar to the way he honored London and the way that he’s always honored New York.  If there’s ever been a director who knows how to make a city a character all its own, it’s Woody Allen.  Personally, I’ve never wanted to go there.  I’ve now changed my mind – if for no other reason than to see the Monet in some museum that takes up a whole room.  (I really hope that does exist; if not, my heart will be broken.) 

The first several minutes of the film are nothing but location shots set to an upbeat score.  Everything is beautiful and harmonious.  The Eiffel Tower is shown both in daytime and night in order to show its brilliance when it’s alighted.

Woody hasn’t been this good in years, and this film deserves every bit of praise that it’s gotten and more.  I hope the Academy remembers this one come January.