The warm and fuzzy side of Woody Allen, as well as a surprise hit after about a decade of such middling reception that film companies seemed to actively HIDE his name in trailers. To Allen’s credit, he didn’t do anything different for this movie. It offers the same score of old music, the same bittersweet romance and the same eye for big city beauty that Allen’s been laying on us since the late 70s. There’s even a classic Woody Allen role, but as played by a younger actor. That’s Owen Wilson, who’s pretty good, or least less awkward than Kenneth Branagh and Will Ferrell’s past stabs at playing Woody Allen for Woody Allen. One advantage that Wilson has though is that his character is virtuous all around. He’s a likable actor whom Allen lets stay likable. His only “flaw” is that he’s a dreamer (and in movies like this that’s not much of a flaw), a successful Hollywood screenwriter with ambitions of starting a new life as a serious novelist in Paris where he wants to walk in the rain and buy old 78s from pretty girls in outdoor markets. Meanwhile, his more practical-minded fiancee and her family, on a business trip, just want to get back to Los Angeles. Then there’s the educated blowhard who gets off on blabbing about his knowledge, but has nothing close to Wilson’s earnest love for all things old and Parisian.
It’s an ancient comedy staple. Reality isn’t working out for the lead character, so he gets transported to a fantasy world, by either a dream or mystical intervention, where he can finally get some shit done unfettered. That’s Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. That’s Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr.. That’s the 1933 comedy Roman Scandals in which Eddie Cantor daydreams himself into a cartoonish ancient Rome. That’s a few works by Woody Allen himself, going back to his 1977 short story “The Kugelmass Episode”, in which a character is able to step into the pages of Madame Bovary in hopes of solving his problems, to this, where a ghost car in the night takes Owen Wilson back to 1920s bohemian Paris as depicted in Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. A roll call of expatriates and artists of the day show up, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Alice B. Toklas to Cole Porter. Wilson hobnobs at Bricktop’s, gets his unfinished novel critiqued by Gertrude Stein, learns the real story behind a misunderstood Picasso painting and gets to explain his dilemma to a non-judgmental gathering of famous surrealists. Since this is a Woody Allen movie, Wilson also cheats on his fiancee with a happenin’ 1920s honey (Marion Cotillard, a natural with a cigarette holder and flapper-style headband).
Most of it is a nostalgic wet dream for both Wilson’s character and Allen, who always seems to have a little extra fun with Jazz Age period pieces (such as Bullets Over Broadway and the more recent Magic in the Moonlight). The 1920s Paris scenes here are straight out of vintage photographs and old movie stills, impressing otherworldly authenticity in Allen’s signature master shots without ever trying too hard.
Not trying too hard is part of this film’s appeal, after all. Every now and then, Allen pulls it off. He takes some simple, proven ingredients and whips up a tasty dessert (if not a full meal) out of it. And, hey, three cheers for dessert.