There can't be many more prolific American filmmakers than Woody Allen. According to my roommate (by way of IMDb), he's released a film every year since 1982, and his most recent, "Midnight in Paris" is one of his best and most enjoyable. The premise of the film is an American screenwriter visiting modern-day Paris, who mysteriously finds himself transported back into the city circa the 1920's while walking the city's streets alone at midnight. Allen's concept, though, is that each generation sees through a golden haze of nostalgia, that which came before, and that even in the earlier time period, there are people who revere an even earlier time.
Allen's trod this ground before, the golden glow of nostalgia, but here it seems fresh and not nearly so cliche as it may sound on paper. This is partly due to his writing, his casting, and perhaps most importantly, his brevity as a director. The entire film comes off in just over ninety minutes, and that's all the time Allen needs to tell his story; there's not a gratuitous note in the picture.
And, to be fair, who wouldn't fall in love with the idea of Paris at midnight? Gil (Owen Wilson, standing in for Allen) certainly does, although his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams, just a bit too shrewish in what is basically a thankless role) and her ugly-American-tourist parents fail to fall under the spell of the city the way Gil does, which makes sense, since he's a writer, or, someone who gets paid to dream.
In his nightly reveries, Gil encounters American expatriates Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and a host of other notable names, and Allen mixes a blend of familiar faces (Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody) with relative unknowns (Allison Pill, impressive as hell as Zelda Fitzgerald), and especially Corey Stoll, whom I've never heard of but will be watching with interest in the future, embodying Hemingway. The most fully-formed of the characters Gil encounters in 1920's Paris is Adriana, the mistress of Picasso, whom he falls in love with. As played by Marion Cotillard, Adriana is enchanting, and easily shows how she would become the object of affection of a number of potential lovers. There's something about Cotillard that fits the time period of the film; she seems to belong there, whereas sometimes actors in period films stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, Cotillard is a perfect match.
It's a charming piece of fluff, a bit of a fairy tale, and a love letter to both Paris and the 'idealized' Paris of the past, and a jewel in Woody Allen's filmography. And it totally makes me want to walk through Paris, at midnight, in the rain, with someone's hand to hold...(sigh).
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