Owen Wilson played the heir apparent to the real Woody whom has become a Gentile with the same mundane worries and style but minus the shtick. Owen is a fairly successful Hollywood Hack who loved Paris as a very young man and has renewed the love affair piggybacking on his fiancée's family business trip to the City of Lights.
Owen is desperate to finish his first novel of which his wife (Rachel McAdams) is critical of and believes him better off writing hack screenplays. Her family is not totally sold on him or his abilities so his fit into her world is tenuous at best.
Early in the trip McAdams is set upon by old friends visiting Paris as well. The husband, Michael Sheen, is a rather stuffy genius who seems to know absolutely everything. In fact, Owen is drug along in tow while Sheen tells them everything about everything to the extent of correcting their tour guide, Ms Sarkozy.
Wilson is now tormented by McAdams interest in her friends and wants some Paris-time for himself. He begins taking midnight walks and one particular evening he stops to rest when a vintage limo pulls up and the merry makers insist he get in and have a drink. Soon he finds himself in a club and talking to Zelda and Fitz. Then he spies Cole Porter at the piano playing one of his hits. He can't believe it but it is true.
He continues to meet a car at midnight and meets all the famous rising artists of the 20's. Allen depicts Hemingway as a simple-minded manly man in a very laughable way. Adrien Brody does a wonderfully camp "Dali" and other characters are such. Gertrude Stein (Bates) agrees to read his novel and make critiques.
It really doesn't take long for him to find another love interest (Cotillard) on the rebound from Picasso and mutual feelings develop and seem so promising until a horse drawn carriage pulls up and she pulls him onto it. Then, after all the 20's, they are whisked away to yet another era.........
This film is all Woody all the time. If you don't enjoy his writing then don't waste your time. This is a smörgåsbord of cameos playing the artists we still appreciate today and entertaining in itself for that.
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Topic - "Midnight In Paris": More delightful self-indulgence from the master of it . . . - mr grits 15:12:35 06/13/11 (3)
- ....Seems like fun............ - RedGrant 08:01:51 06/14/11 (2)
- May I suggest: Paris Je T'aime - grinagog 04:23:20 06/16/11 (1)
- It's a film that should be viewed with lowered expectations . . . - mr grits 09:03:15 06/16/11 (0)