Some would argue that discussing the major element at the heart of the plot of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris the separates it from being just another romantic comedy is a spoiler; that it's better to go in not knowing. I'm not sure I agree, but since that idea exists I will preface this review with a SPOILER ALERT! Do not read on if you don't want to know, just take my recommendation to watch the movie.
Now that that's out of the way, let me list a few names for you: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Luis Bunuel, Tom Elliot. Do these names mean anything to you, some or all? They certainly mean something to Gil (Owen Wilson), a self described "hack" screenwriter who dreams of publishing a novel and wanders around Paris fantasising about the Golden Age of the 20's when any or all of those people and more where walking these very streets or drinking in these very bars while masterfully shaping the very future of literature, art, film, and music. His fiance (Rachel McAdams) is kind of a bitch, and is obviously crushing on another man, a very pedantic professor (Michael Sheen). One night while wandering the streets, just as the bells toll midnight, an antique car pulls up bustling with passengers, who invite him with them. Two of those people happen to be the aforementioned Fitzgeralds (Tom Hiddleston and the wonderful Alison Pill), and when they arrive at their destination Gil finds he's in a bar in Paris in the 1920s, surrounded by his heroes. And every night thereafter at midnight, he goes back.
Allen never bothers to explain what strange magic is happening here, but ultimately it doesn't matter; this one's far more concerned about comedy and character than wonder. Most of the old guard Gil meets are exactly what you would hope for them to be, and wonderfully written and acted. I particularly loved Corey Stall as an Ernest Hemingway who waxes poetic about the meaning of life one minute, and boisterously asks who wants to fight the next; Kathy Bates as a no-nonsense Gertrude Stein who advises everyone around her on everything they do, usually correctly; and Adrian Brody who appears only briefly as an extremely inebriated Salvador Dali. Gil himself of course is the Woody Allen character, and Wilson does it surprisingly well; it's probably the best Woody character not played by Allen himself. There's a good bit of comedy that requires some knowledge of these people and their work (Gil suggests a movie idea to Bunuel, where people at a dinner party suddenly find themselves unable to leave. Hilariously, Bunuel doesn't get it, we leave him shouting "It doesn't make sense!" 40 years later Bunuel made The Exterminating Angel. Guess it took him a long time to make sense of it!) I would suggest that this is a "thinking person's" comedy, but don't want to imply it's pretentious or inaccessible; it is not. You might not love it if you don't know something about these people, but you'll still like it, and you'll still laugh. In fact the funniest moment in the movie requires no art or literary knowledge at all. That's when we discover the fate of a private investigator hired by the fiance's father (Kurt Fuller) to follow Gil one midnight. Hilarious!
I should mention much of the movie has a golden glow, particularly evident in an early scene at Versailles. Some people call this glow yellow and find it annoying; I thought it was lovely and warm. Plus it emphasizes a wonderful idea, one brought to the forefront in a late twist that plunges Gil and prototype art groupie Adriana (Marion Cotillard) even further back in time. It would seem everyone's Golden Age was once someone's Boring Present. Hence we are right now living in a Golden Age, we just can't see it for what it is. That might be one of the happiest thoughts I've come away from a movie with in a good long time.
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