Review of Midnight in Paris (2011) by Trevor R — 14 Apr 2013

"Midnight in Paris" is a light, fun, relaxing film to watch. It's a refreshingly breezy story, with no transparent attempts to inject a false sense of peril into this fantastical tale (nor any attempt to explain the central conceit; another stroke of genius). There are a million jokes that went right over my head-- I was far more familiar with the art references than the literature ones-- but the movie is so delightful and well-acted, it can be enjoyable to everyone, regardless of one's educational background. One of the only real faults to me was the over-usage of the primary guitar music cue, which got a bit tiresome after about 15 or 16 times.

Special mention needs to be made of Owen Wilson, who delivers perhaps the best writer-surrogate performance since Jason Alexander perfectly channeled Larry David in TV's "Seinfeld" (And in fact, there was a decent amount of Woody infused into that role too). Allen has found a perfect vessel for his voice, and I look forward to future collaborations between these two.