Midnight in Paris (2011)

Directed by Woody Allen. Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Corey Stoll, Mimi Kennedy, Kathy Bates, Kurt Fuller, Nina Arianda, Tom Hiddleston, Alison Pill, Léa Seydoux, Carla Bruni, Adrien Brody, Adrien de Van, Marcial Di Fonzo Bo. [PG-13]

Exceedingly pleasant trifle of an American screenwriter (Wilson) who aspires to be a novelist and heedlessly romanticizes a bygone era. While visiting Paris with his disagreeable fiancée (McAdams), he staggers away from a night of wine tasting to get some fresh air, alone and discontented, but then he finds himself transported back to the 1920s at a party populated by the likes of Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald (among others). Memories and fantasies of “golden ages” can be as much a gift as they are a curse—it sure is sweet, but once he gets a taste, how can he find satisfaction in his modern life?—but even more than Allen’s past sojourns into fantasy (e.g., The Purple Rose of Cairo), it’s an unguarded magic spell that requires no serious consideration or grain of pathos. Instead, the film, its witty script, the deft performers, and the inviting photography are all light on their feet, frisky, and graceful; who’d have thought that Woody’s sentimental side could so greatly outclass his neuroses and intellectualism? He does stack the deck when it comes to the contemporary characterizations—if she always thinks and behaves the way she does, why is McAdams even in a relationship with Wilson?—and the wealth of possibilities he opens up in the closing act leaves a lot of fertile land untilled in order to reach the quaintly happy (if open-ended) finale, but not everyone can see around the “rhinoceros.” Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay.

83/100