Directed by:
Woody AllenScreenplay:
Woody AllenCinematography:
Darius KhondjiCast:
Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Michael Sheen, Alison Pill, Adrien Brody, Sonia Rolland, Léa Seydoux, Kathy Bates (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
This is a romantic comedy set in Paris about a family that goes there because of business, and two young people who are engaged to be married in the fall have experiences there that change their lives. It's about a young man`s great love for a city, Paris, and the illusion people have that a life different from theirs would be much better. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Videos (9)
Reviews (13)
Allen doesn’t disappoint. With considerable help from a traditionally excellent cast, and with his most intelligent script in years, he delivers a brilliant and charming advertisement for magical Paris that trumps almost all of his New York ballads in one fell swoop. Time travel has perhaps never been so tastefully entertaining on film, and there's certainly no other work that will make you want to know everything about all those legendary artists, from Hemingway to filmmaker Buñuel. Wilson is permanently likeable, McAdams unfortunately plays second fiddle, but she’s supplemented with grace by the irresistibly adorable Cotillard. Maybe when I can see the beauty of Paris myself, I’ll give it 5*.
()
Woody Allen is certainly an American, but he has always somewhat defied the idea of a typical American because he belongs to the circle of New York liberals who have always been culturally closer to Europe than to the American South or Midwest. In Europe, his intellectually-oriented work was also more embraced by audiences than in America. Woody makes fun of this in his film Hollywood Ending, where a blind director makes a film that, for understandable reasons, makes no sense, and when the American studio throws it overboard, the film receives recognition at a European film festival and also from European viewers. In the later stage of his career, Woody truly fell in love with Paris, and when he decided to leave his beloved New York, he began creating there. This film is nothing more than a tribute to Paris as a cultural center and a city with an amazing history, and the whole gimmick tries to sell the viewer as many famous figures of European culture that once passed through Paris in the 1920s. He chose this period so he could showcase his favorite musical melodies. Unfortunately, it had to happen one day - my favorite director Woody, to whom I usually give 4 stars, even in the weaker films that I forget about after a few days, managed to reliably entertain me only to the level of three stars this time. I am not surprised by Woody thematically or in the choice of actors, but somehow I didn't enjoy this panoply of characters, and in the first half, I was downright bored. The second half is a bit better, but even the few functioning jokes were not particularly original, and during Allen's overproduction, I remembered them from other films. It is a pleasant film, but I just could not get into it. Overall impression: 45%.
()
As Woody Allen sees it, walking and lounging around in Paris is mainly a pleasant experience. Fortunately without unbearable sweetness and with a willingness to admit that the appealing genre veneer merely provides refuge for a sabre-toothed bitch called life. A declaration of love for the former intellectual and artistic heart of Europe, Midnight in Paris begins with a picture-postcard prologue that inspires comparisons to Manhattan, which of course was filmed at a time when Allen’s jokes were more polished and the conclusions he arrived at were more sceptical. Together, the two films are able to make you take this idealised portrait of the big city as your own and, particularly in this case, declare “Paris, je t'aime“ after the closing credits have rolled. Owen Wilson “became” Allen unexpectedly smoothly; in line with the comedic potential of his face, he toned down the intellectualism and added some – reasonably subdued – grimaces. Unlike flowing romantic comedies, Midnight in Paris is more deliberate and restrained in terms of style (the actors walk nicely in long shots), only reinforcing my fears that Allen has either definitively given up on trying to make a more ambitious film with more layers of meaning and a more sophisticated narrative or he has simply run out of themes that could be developed beyond a pleasant anecdote. 80% Appendix: I most enjoyed the encounter with the surrealists (the charmingly excited Brody) and the affirmation that it took Buňuel just as long to digest the initial situation of The Exterminating Angel (roughly 30 years) as it will take an unprepared viewer to understand its satire.
()
I would say no, I'm pretty sure this is my first Woody Allen movie. As a result I didn't know what to expect, but dug what I got and came out with a pretty satisfied and full tummy. Paris, the city I loved, the Lost Generation, and the message that drives the film – it all made for a tasty whole. Plus, Owen wasn't bad, although in some of the crappy parts I'd just rather see someone more... I don't know if "erudite" is the right word. A film full of art and thoughts of the past. Apparently there's nothing like living in the present.
()
The picture has a certain vibration about it and I (it seems I alone of the watching ensemble) enjoyed listening to it. Maybe it was the magic of Paris, pulling me back into the past... I often think that I was born at the wrong moment in time... maybe I have an understanding for the indecisiveness of the main protagonist and his search for (women?) himself. Very well-cast. Wlison’s slightly dumbfounded expression is well-placed, Rachel McAdams is absolutely modern, Marion Cotillard beautifully period and the familiar faces of famous people were fine. And the final “decision"? I think I know what I would have done, but it would be a hard choice.
()
Ads