Once upon a time, every Woody Allen film was one big love letter to New York. Then suddenly he realised there are other cities out there, cities willing to return his love, cities that wouldn’t judge him the way New York used to, and once he started sleeping around city-wise it was only a matter of time before he ended up knocking on the door of that well-worn tramp, Paris. Well, not so much knocking on her door as drooling all over the front step: the opening sequence of Midnight in Paris is nothing but shots of Paris streets, just to let us know that this particular film - Midnight in Paris, in case you’d forgotten - is actually set in Paris.
While Woody might have his off days, today isn’t one of them and it turns out this love affair with Paris isn’t just a personal whim but actually part of the story: scriptwriter Gil (Owen Wilson) is holidaying in Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachael McAdams) and her staunchly Republican parents. He loves everything about Paris, she’s increasingly keen to get back home to California. For him Paris symbolises a lost Golden Age of art and culture that, as a struggling novelist, he’d love to escape to; for her and her parents, it’s a mildly interesting tourist trap, as symbolised by her former teacher Paul (an amazingly snooty Michael Sheen) who joins them to waffle on with endless, endlessly dull “facts” about the art and culture around them.
Fortunately for Gil, while wandering the streets one night a 1920s-era roadster pulls up and takes him away to the golden age he’s been obsessing about, complete with Zelda (Alison Pill) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston). Gil soon becomes chummy with a young Earnest Hemmingway (Corey Stoll), who ushers him into the literary world he’s always dreamed of and introduces him to Picasso’s current lover Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman who’s everything Inez isn’t.
Night after night Gil returns to the past, meeting up with an ever-growing list of historical figures that Allen never fails to make fun of. But again, while at first it might seem like just an opportunity to dust off some old Hemmingway and Dali material, there’s a point behind the clichéd way just about everyone is presented.
While the film (thankfully) is too smart to actually come out and say it, this is Gil’s fantasy version of the past, and the increasing silliness of the way they’re presented is one of this film’s many charms. So while Gil’s getting laughs from explaining his time-travelling predicament to a group of surrealists (not surprisingly, they’re not surprised) and trying to make a move on Adrianna, there’s a deeper question being asked: is living in the past any real way to live?
Actually having a point behind all the gags – and there are some really funny gags here – gives this a weight that some of Allen’s recent comedies have lacked, and the jokes are all the funnier for it. While the supporting cast is universally great (Stoll’s Hemmingway and Adrian Brody as Dali are stand-outs), it’s Wilson who really brings it all together. He’s one of the rare actors who can make Allen’s dialogue and jokes work without coming off as someone doing an impression of Allen. But the real star here is Paris: Allen has crafted a real love letter to the city both then and now, and if their tourism board has any sense he’ll be getting a hefty check in the mail.
- Four stars
Midnight in Paris opens in cinemas on Thursday, October 20.