Midnight in Paris

Expectation often leads to disappointment, perhaps never more so than in the case of Woody Allen films. This is doubly so. There are his fans, who live in the hope that he will recreate his classics of the 70s and 80s, and there are the people who have seen the trailer for a romantic comedy starring (in this example) Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, and hope it will be endearing and funny. So in recent years both types of moviegoer have been disappointed. Woody Allen’s films are not simple romantic comedies, nor are they recreations of his earlier classics. Both sets of expectations are frustrated. How, then, are we supposed to watch his films? The obvious answer is as someone aware of what to expect from Woody Allen, and yet not in anticipation of something similar to his films from the past. Midnight in Paris will not disappoint anyone who approaches it in this way. It is funny, rife with literary allusions, self-deprecation, and brilliant, real comic characters. It can undoubtedly be called ‘his best for years’, although this often-repeated phrase is somewhat patronising. Without wishing to ruin the film for those who haven’t seen it, it stars Wilson as a screenwriter visiting Paris with his fiancé and her parents. There is at times that awkwardness perhaps due to the script, or the direction of the actors, that I often feel in watching his recent films. The jokes, or literary references, are too stilted, or fall out of the actor’s mouths rather clumsily. It could only barely be maintained that Owen Wilson was doing an impersonation of Woody Allen (as most of his leading men have been). He does a good job of making his own character out of the heavy burden of being Allen’s mouthpiece. There are great, poetic moments in this film, finished with a perfect ending. You should see it.