Back to the Past, in Paris

It is the rare movie about Paris that escapes playing to nostalgia and conjuring up hackneyed cliches about one of the most beloved cities in the world.  So, truth be told, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is not a rare movie.  But it is fresh and fun, and definitely enjoyable whether you love Paris or not. Before launching into the story, the film primes the audience for unabashed nostalgia with scenes of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and various well-known tourist attractions, to the backdrop of lilting accordion street music.  No surprise then when the main character, Gil (played by Owen Wilson), starts gushing on in a typically exuberant American way about the allure of the city.  His fiancee is less impressed, and he's soon left alone to wander the streets at midnight, which leads him magically to the world of Paris in the 1920s.  Along with meeting Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and a very ridiculous Salvador Dali (played by Adrian Brody), Gil is inspired to write his novel, and change his life.  And believe it or not, none of this is cheesy.  Owen Wilson's sweet eagerness, reminiscent of a college freshman who wants to learn and try and do everything, embraces the creativity of the artists he encounters, and rejects the self-indulgent intellectualism of the academic type that his fiancee prefers.  In the end, the movie isn't about mere nostalgia, but rather that exhilarating feeling of finding the profession, or the place, or the person, who strikes a chord in the very heart of your being and inspires you.  It is about falling in love.