Midnight in Paris

Plot:
Gil (Owen Wilson), a successful but distracted Hollywood screenwriter, and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), are in Paris, vacationing with Inez's wealthy, conservative parents (Mimi Kennedy, Kurt Fuller). Gil is struggling to finish his first novel, but Inez dismisses his ambition as a romantic daydream. While Gil is considering moving to the city, Inez is intent on living in Malibu. By chance, they are joined by Inez's friend Paul (Michael Sheen), a pseudo-intellectual who speaks with great authority but little actual accuracy on the history and art of the city. Inez idolizes him, but Gil finds him insufferable.

One night, Gil gets drunk and wanders the streets of Paris. At midnight, an antique car pulls up, and the passengers— dressed in 1920s clothing—urge Gil to join them. They go to a bar, where Gil comes to realize that he has been transported to the 1920s, an era he idolizes. He encounters Cole Porter (Yves Heck), Josephine Baker (Sonia Rolland), and Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston), who take him to meet Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll). Hemingway agrees to show Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), and Gil goes to fetch his manuscript from his hotel. However, as soon as he leaves the bar, he finds he has returned to the present.

Gil attempts to bring Inez to the past with him the following night, but while they wait, she gets frustrated, and peevishly returns to the hotel. Just after she leaves, the clock strikes midnight and the car pulls up again, this time with Hemingway inside it. He takes Gil to meet Stein, who agrees to read his novel and introduces him to Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo) and his mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard), to whom Gil is instantly attracted.

Over the next few days, Gil spends each night in the past. His late-night wanderings frustrate Inez, and arouse the suspicion of her father, who hires a detective (Gad Elmaleh) to follow Gil. Meanwhile, Gil spends more and more time with Adriana, who leaves Picasso and has a brief dalliance with Hemingway. Gil realizes that he is falling in love with her, leaving him conflicted. He confides his predicament to Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody), Man Ray (Tom Cordier) and Luis Buñuel (Adrien de Van), but being surrealists they see nothing strange about his coming from the future.

While Inez shops for furniture, Gil meets Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux), an antiques dealer and fellow admirer of the Lost Generation. Gil later discovers Adriana's diary from the 1920s in a book stall on the Seine and finds out that she was in love with him. Reading that she dreamed of receiving a gift of earrings from him and then making love to him, Gil attempts to steal a pair of earrings from Inez to give to Adriana, but is thwarted by Inez's early return from a trip.

Gil purchases earrings for Adriana and, returning to the past, confesses his love for her. As they kiss, they are invited inside by a richly-dressed couple and are transported back to the Belle Époque, an era Adriana considers Paris's Golden Age. They are taken to Maxim's Paris, and meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Vincent Menjou Cortes), Paul Gauguin (Olivier Rabourdin) and Edgar Degas (François Rostain). When Gil asks what they thought the best era was, the three determine that the greatest era was the Renaissance. The enthralled Adriana is offered a job designing ballet costumes, and proposes to Gil that they stay. Gil, however, realizes that despite the allure of nostalgia, it is better to accept the present for what it is. Adriana elects to stay in the past, and they sadly part ways.

Gil retrieves his novel from Stein, who praises his progress as a writer but questions why the main character has not realized that his fiancée (based on Inez) is having an affair with a pedantic character based on Paul. Gil returns to the present and confronts Inez. She admits to sleeping with Paul, but dismisses it as a meaningless fling. Gil breaks up with Inez and decides to remain in Paris. Taking a walk at midnight, he meets Gabrielle, and offers to walk her home after it starts to rain and he learns that she likes Paris in the rain too.

PG-13, 1 hr. 34 min.
Comedy, Romance

Directed By: Woody Allen

Written By: Woody Allen

In Theaters: Jun 10, 2011 Wide
On DVD: Dec 20, 2011
US Box Office:$56.3M

Sony Pictures Classics