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Well, here we are again with yet another colourful and enlightening romantic-comedy from Woody Allen but hasn’t given us a film that has fulfilled the beauty and delight from previous successes - Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah And Her Sisters. However, having said that you’d know almost exactly what to expect with almost every single Woody Allen romantic-comedy, he achieves another breakthrough in his career as Midnight In Paris takes us on a daydream-like adventure through Paris and becomes his greatest film in years!
The city of Paris is perhaps one of the most common film-location choices and over the years, has made its mark as glistening sunshine within the film industry and the world of Hollywood, which we have witnessed in films such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, two of the three in the Trois Couleurs aka Three Colours trilogy and amongst others. Within the first 5 minutes of the film, we are taken into the beauty of Paris as there is just footage of the most attracted sites within the city, and are introduced into the colourful nature that leads into the story. So, as the film progresses, the film provides not only the beautiful settings of Paris, but also the personal effect it has on the characters and audiences watching.
In addition, Midnight In Paris represents other particular forms of beauty as it has enchanting and enlightening continuous music that almost tells the story, and it is a very colourful story with dazzling cinematography and art direction. There is only one flawed issue that could be quite crucial and affective for other viewers, and that is Midnight In Paris isn’t your traditional hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy and is rom-coms that happens most of the time. However, due to the positive aspects of production within the film, it makes up for excluding laugh-out-loud humour by making it still enlightening and colourful enough for its viewers.
Midnight In Paris consists of a strong ensemble cast – mostly American actors in a French city, but there are still some French actors. Leading the pack for Woody Allen’s latest romantic-comedy is Owen Wilson, truly an actor who you either love or you hate. Although, having never been a huge admirer of the man, he has admittedly delivered some good performances in most recent films. In all honesty, his performance as Gill is quite possibly his greatest performance yet as he provides a performance that rather easy-going and inspiring about self-discovery and you want out of your life. In fact, it has opened up a whole new discovery about Owen Wilson as an actor – he can be serious in his roles with either a film director who’s passionate about his/her projects or but in a comedy just for entertainment, he doesn’t always impress. As a result of his impressive performance, he deserves (yes, deserves) his Golden Globe nomination.
Rachel McAdams is mostly recognised as the girl from The Notebook and Mean Girls, so she has already gained the hearts of audiences who love romantic dramas and comedies. McAdams portrays somebody that isn’t so familiar with what she has previously done. Inez is an argumentative, shallow and a rather hateful young woman, who acts rather dominant on occasions, but she did deliver a satisfying performance but it isn’t one of her most memorable. Academy Award winning French actress Marion Cotillard appears Adriana, the mistress of Pablo Picasso, who Gil meets and is instantly attracted to. Kathy Bates portrayed wise and famous American writer, Gertrude Stein, who was in fact a real-life person who lived in France throughout the majority of her life and lived to the age of 72. Adrien Brody makes a cameo appearance as Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí, who was also a real-life person in the early to mid 20th century.
Overall, Midnight In Paris is a short and sweet romantic comedy that is easily one of Woody Allen’s greatest achievements in many years and for this reason, it has become a well-deserved Oscar contender for a numerous number of awards. It is perhaps focused more on the beautiful settings side than anything else and it cannot really be re-lived, so it is a film that is better only seeing once because you can just experience and travel along with the characters and there will be no experience like any other.
8/10
