Review: Midnight in Paris

By some fluke, the new Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris ended up at the Empire Theatre in downtown Kingston – a strange and wonderful phenomenon give the fact that very few artsy movies ever make it to the two main theatres here. The craziest thing is, the movie has been there for at least a month, and I have consistently been searching in vain for an opportunity to go – until yesterday, when I finally found myself with a couple hours of spare time. My mom, grandma and I took in the matinee performance after going out for lunch, making for a relaxing Sunday afternoon despite the mountains of work I knew I had to accomplish later that evening.

Happily, the movie was even better than I thought it was going to be, which seems to hardly ever happen when something’s been built up so much. The story tells of a writer named Gil (Owen Wilson) who has a steamy love affair with the city of Paris - particularly how he imagines it would have been in the 1920s - and a not-so-steamy relationship with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), who is to put it mildly a cold-hearted bitch. During a trip to the City of Lights with his deplorable in-laws, Gil is magically transported each night at midnight back to Paris of the 1920s, where he befriends the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemmingway and Picasso.

Seeing as I’ve had my own love affair with everything Paris for over a decade now, not to mention an immense appreciation for modern literature and art, Paris at Midnight was right up my alley. It was just as much if not more aesthetically pleasing as I was hoping it would be, and just zany enough to hit the spot on a scorching July afternoon. (Naturally, however, it felt like mid-January in the theatre).

It probably wasn’t the most brilliantly-written Woody Allen film I’ve ever seen, but the charm of the actors and tongue-in-cheek treatment of humanity’s universal habit of glamorizing the past definitely fit together very nicely, and it didn’t feel like anything was missing.

What this movie did more than anything was vicariously fulfill a dream that I think most of us would be lying if we said we didn’t have: to be able to step back in time and pick the brains of our historical idols. Or have lengthy conversations with our contemporary idols, for that matter.

There’s no question that I’ll be buying this one on DVD, and watching it whenever I’m in need of a pick-me-up. Estimated DVD release date: October 2011. Let the countdown begin!