Midnight in Paris

So I had been hearing so much about this movie since it opened up the Cannes festival this year and I thought it was about time I saw it. It has my favorite actress, or at least one of my top three, Marion Cotillard in it and it's a Woody Allen film. The movie has made about $145 million worldwide, thanks to a great performance overseas, and it was made with a budget of only $17 million. 

The movie is about a couple, played by Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, who are vacationing in Paris while McAdams' parents are there on business. One night Wilson's character finds himself drunk and lost in Paris at midnight when an old antique car comes to pick him up. He then finds himself in a timeslip back to 1920's Paris and rubbing elbows with Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, etc. Oh, did I mention that the movie also has Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, and Carla Bruni?

The plot is obviously a little whimsical, but it was so much fun and was totally relatable. Everyone (almost) always thinks it would be so much simpler and easier to live in a time before their own. This plot explores that feeling. The dialogue and observations made by the characters are quite witty and spot on. Contrary to some other of Woody Allen's films, this plot was linear and worked towards a conclusion. 

The scenery shots in the movie were just beautiful, but Paris is beautiful itself. The timeslip sequences were equally as beautiful. The nostalgia was almost palpable in the movie. The score was perfect and featured Cole Porter which was simply awesome. 

Owen Wilson is almost like the modern day Woody Allen, with his rambling monologues and such. He did a good job in this movie. He was not different than most of his other roles but he wasn't over the top and let the movie take center stage. Rachel McAdams played the perfect distant and angry girlfriend. I loved Marion Cotillard's character and thought she was just super smooth and polished in this role. 

In the end, I really really liked this movie. It had witty observations but also hit a chord with the escapist inside of me. It really is symbolically and quite literally about escaping the droll present and was a fun ride to watch. It was beautiful, had a great story, showcased some of the greatest periods in modern history, and was all shot on location in Paris for goodness sakes. Props to Woody Allen, who can sometimes be hit or miss in my opinion at least. "The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence".