North American authors and Paris… there’s a strange mystic there. Whether you read Barney’s Version or read of the 1920s authors in Paris. Midnight in Paris is a sci-fi film about a modern-day Hollywood screenwriter who’s on vacation in Paris with his fiancée. The screenwriter has given up work for the time being to focus on his novel. He’s in love with the past, specifically Paris of the 1920s. One day, after wandering the streets of Paris alone, the clock strikes midnight, and an old car pulls up. He gets in the car and is whisked away into the 1920s where he meets the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and even gets Gertrude Stein to read his novel and give feedback.
The film uses sci-fi to tell the story of the inner mind of mankind. It’s an excellent film with only two flaws in my mind. 1) Woody Allen the writer and director obviously wrote himself as the lead, and Owen Wilson plays Woody Allen perfectly. His slight mannerisms, his nervousness, his Jewishness, his New Yorkiness, etc. It’s very distracting to see one actor playing another actor when there’s no reason for him to not make the character his own. 2) A tie is supposed to end at your belt buckle, Owen, not your belly button, you look silly.
Actually, every Woody Allen movie have himself as a character somewhere. For a guy who hate himself, he sure like to insert himself in every single movie.