Quick Summary: Feeling like some sort of "lost generation" fan-fiction, this isn't a bad film, but it wasn't worth movie theatre prices.

Title: Midnight in Paris

Release: 2011

Director: Woody Allen

Starring:

Owen Wilson (Gil)

Rachel McAdams (Inez)

Michael Sheen (Paul)

"Midnight in Paris" was an enjoyable but utterly forgettable film. While the technical abilities of the crew are obviously first-rate, the script reads like a piece of "lost generation" fan-fiction somehow turned into a movie.

At the beginning of the film, Gil travels to Paris with his fiancée, Inez, and her parents. Gil is supposed to be working on writing a novel about a man who owns a nostalgia shop, but Inez insists that she and Gil spend most of their time with her old friend Paul. Paul makes Gil feel inferior, and Gil can't stand that Inez is always hanging on Paul's every word. Inez even refuses to listen to Gil when he talks about wanting to visit parts of the city associated with famous British and American expatriates in the 1920s. He describes the Paris of the 1920s as a "Golden Age"; Inez makes fun of him.

Gil is saved from his boring Paris days when a mysterious old car picks him up while he is attempting to walk home alone at midnight. The car delivers him to a party, attended by some of his favourite 1920s luminaries - Cole Porter, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Gil soon also meets Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, etc. etc. etc. He also meets a beautiful but troubled young woman, for whom the 1890s were Paris' "Golden Age".

Gil finds that his 1920s friends give him confidence and excite his creative impulses. However, he begins to find it difficult to integrate his night-time life in the past with his daytime life in the present.

Technically, the film is undeniably well-done. The cinematography is excellent throughout. A long opening sequence acts as a love-letter to Paris, making the city look as gorgeous and romantic as any French Travel & Tourism official could desire. The music includes a lot of genuine, recognizable 1920s pieces, a real treat for fans of the era. Finally, the acting is good, particularly Owen Wilson's. He does a great job making a dense and wordy script sound believable.

And the script is indeed dense and wordy; Mr. Allen would do well to remember the "show, don't tell" rule applies to movies as much as to any other art form. There are other flaws in the writing too; Gil is arguably a "Mary Sue", a stand-in for Allen who somehow becomes best friends with all the historical characters immediately upon meeting them, and whose only real flaw is being misunderstood. It is never clear what he and Inez see in one another - they are so perfectly mismatched that I can't understand how they became engaged. Finally, the paper-thin moral presented near the end of the film is trite to the point that most time-travel stories have already dealt with it within the first ten minutes.

Despite the shallowness of the script, the film as a whole is sweet, seems heartfelt, and is entertaining in a mild, pleasant way. The fun premise does a lot to make this film more enjoyable. In conclusion, wait for the DVD; the film isn't bad, but it isn't worth movie theatre prices either.

Originally Written: August 23, 2011

And of course, by now the movie is available in multiple formats - I believe it's even on Netflix at the moment.