Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, is a valentine to writers everywhere.  It's a charming little movie, beautifully shot, with laugh-out-loud moments. I saw it in a small independent theater and it was jammed full on the second weekend of playing; my friend remarked on the size of the crowd, and I said it was because everyone in the audience was a writer.  I should have recruited for a writer's group right there and then.

Owen Wilson does a fine job as the befuddled, Woody Allen-esque hero.  Marion Cotillard is enchanting as an artist's muse.  She played Leo DiCaprio's wife in "Inception" but she's in finer form here, with more to do and say.  A number of fine actors show up in supporting roles, including Kathy Bates and Corey Stoll (why have I never noticed him before? Excellent!).  Paris herself is a lovely character, glass and stone and light.  The first five minutes makes you want to go book a vacation there, asap.

One review I read post-movie talked about magical realism, because of course we wouldn't want to say that Woody Allen made a science fiction movie.  A lot of debate has swirled around "magical realism" and what it means, but to me it simply signifies that no attempt will be made to explain the phenomenon at work.  As with John Cheever's story "The Enormous Radio," something strange happens, and the consequences are more important than the cause.  The very first Woody Allen movie I ever saw, The Purple Rose of Cairo, did this as well.  I liked Purple Rose up until the ending, which was disappointing.  Midnight in Paris does it better.

Also disappointing is the Rachel McAdams character here. If the best you can say about a woman is "shrew" then she hasn't really been fleshed out.  Just a little more time spent showing us why Owen Wilson's character loved her, or why she would have ever agreed to marry him in the first place, would have been helpful.  I was happy to see Kurt Fuller (Zachariah from Supernatural) as her dad, and laughed at some of his lines defending the Tea Party.  Boy, is he tall.

In the end, two thumbs up.  Maybe even worth buying on DVD, for those rainy weekends playing writers' movies - Wonder Boys, Shakespeare in Love, Screenplay, Capote, The Player, Finding Forrester . . . okay, maybe not Finding Forrester.