Midnight in Paris

Just as Avatar is a militaristic film that's ostensibly about the dangers of militarism, Midnight is a nostalgic film that's ostensibly about the uselessness of nostalgia. It's easy to forgive it, though, because it's such beautiful eye candy, a sort of "Manhattan" for the Left Bank. Woody Allen owes cinematographer Darius Khondji a drink.

Owen Wilson plays the Woody Allen character, a nebbishy screenwriter named Gil engaged to a harpy played by Rachel McAdams who exists only to be completely unworthy of Gil. As Kenneth Branagh discovered, it's a tough job playing Woody's stand-in, but Wilson is actually pretty good at capturing the stuttering, intellectual essence of a Woody Allen role without actually seeming to ape him.

Gil is rather fond of Paris, which apparently is an underappreciated city, like San Francisco, or Buenos Aires, or Venice, at least among American Tea Party philistines like his fiancée's parents. He discovers that if he waits on a certain street corner at night, a car will come take him back to Paris in the Twenties, a place populated exclusively by famous people--Fitzgerald, Picasso, Eliot, etc. Most of the actors don't really seem to know what to do with the opportunity, and Fitzgerald comes off as a frat boy, Zelda as a ditz, Buñuel as clueless, and Picasso as a bore.

There are some really great exceptions, though, which totally make it worthwhile: Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein, Corey Stoll as Hemingway, and especially Adrien Brody as Dalí. Gil tells a group about the dilemma that is his love life, and Man Ray says: "I see a photograph," Buñuel declares: "I see a film," and Dalí exults: "I see...a rhinoceros!"

The question is whether Gil will return to the present or stay in the past with Marion Cotillard's Adrianna, who is not as scintillating as Gertrude Stein, but presumably Gil stands a better chance with her.

That question is solved rather cleverly, although the cleverness of it is brought down a little bit when the characters actually explain it to the audience. Still, this is some of Allen's best dialogue in ages, and I found it very enjoyable.