Woody's Witching Hour

Colour me surprised that Midnight in Paris burst into UK cinemas a mere five months after its US release, but then you'll all have heard by now that this nostalgia piece by one of America's most prolific and speediest directors is his most financially successful film ever. Earlier this year, on the delayed release of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, I wrote this piece on Allen's last two films, closing with the question, "... will he ever recover his talent for funny, perceptive human insights, or even the romantic visual sense that was once so palatable?"

You've been waiting with baited breath for the answer, and, since it was rather fittingly released into the darkening twinkle of autumn's beginning, you didn't have to hold your breath and go red and collapse with exhaustion in the meantime. Midnight in Paris is Woody's best film in years; certainly his most vibrant since Match Point, and unlike that arch and slightly morbid exercise, this feels like classic Woody. It isn't, don't get me wrong, because he's still lost his touch at writing personable, funny, truthful female characters and in the final event, Rachel McAdams' shrill fiance almost sinks the entire ship.

You'd never be able to tell they're not really in love.

But if we put that aside - and, after so many years experiencing the same (and probably worse) from him, I have to, or I'll never enjoy anything ever again - Midnight in Paris is a film that sparkles with the romance and spirit of the city its set in. Again, a revelation - Woody's managed to capture the essence of a city again, after so baldly missing anything special in Barcelona and consistently misrepresenting London. The bizarrely prolonged montage of shots around Paris that begins the film worried, then relieved me; it was as if Woody was exhausting himself and the audience of all these generic shots, before approaching his real depiction of the city through the nostalgia trip that is the basis of the narrative. The imitation of such major historical cultural figures is so daringly brash that he pulls it off, the clearly fictional imaginings lending a joyous vibrancy that reflects off the walls, the steps and the pavements. The restraint he shows in shying away from any of the iconic buildings means that, even though it's a city chased down a hazily nostalgic rabbit hole, it comes alive because the central character is so in love with the setting.

They're looking at each other. I'd say that's a good first step towards romance.

And in Owen Wilson, Woody's found a substitute for himself who really works (whatever works won't do after all), and ensures that this feels more like one of the classic Woody-starrers than the past fifteen years of his back catalogue have. He's aloof and slightly rude without being unsympathetic, his foppishness subbing well for Woody's reediness. As perhaps befits the plot, the modern day cast are of little interest (though Michael Sheen has predictable fun as a pretentious pedant), but the players of '20s Paris shine, particularly Corey Stoll as an uncompromising, darkly charismatic Ernest Hemingway. And Marion Cotillard is just a shimmer away from undoing the damage McAdams' character does - winsome, elusive, though ultimately just a little too idealised.

To return to my months-old question, I'd be hard-pressed to say that there are any particularly revelatory human insights to be had here. That's a shame, because once upon a time, Woody Allen was one of those writers who could start a scene with a joke and end it with a revelation. Woody the scribe is still stuck in convention, ending the film with a message that's far too bluntly delivered, and rather at odds with his entire career of late. Does Woody actually recognise his own situation - a writer in need of a Gertrude Stein - in Wilson's? Doubtful. But Woody the director has livened up again, and the final point is this. Midnight in Paris, for the first time since, oh, Everyone Says I Love You (just fifteen years ago! ...), is a Woody Allen film genuinely alive with the sense of its title. It might not be Woody back on his unchallenged classical form but it's a Woody who seems to have recovered a sense of the magic of cinema, of the discovery of a troubled character's ventures, and of a sense of romantic purpose. The clock has struck, and I can spy Manhattan down the street. (B-)

Un Peu de Français

It was a strange turn of events that the two films I went to see back-to-back yesterday were both French, but, as well as making for an easy theme for a post, it serves to highlight that foreign cinema doesn't deserve to all be dumped under that label, for the two films I saw couldn't be much more different from each other. Interestingly, if we want to draw parallels with Hollywood, expectations were turned on their heads: the one that you'd think would tend away from Hollywood cliche instead revels in it, and the one that seems more inclined towards convention breaks it to pieces.

The first of the double-bill is one of the most trumpeted foreign films of the year- La Vie En Rose is a lavish, expansive biopic of chanteuse Edith Piaf, with an Oscar-courting central turn from Marion Cotillard at its centre. The biopic has become the genre-du-choix for awards-seeking actors in recent years (see Monster, Iris, Capote, The Aviator, Finding Neverland...) and the musical sub-genre of the biopic is a particular favourite, with both Jamie Foxx and Reese Witherspoon winning their Oscars for their turns as Ray Charles in Ray and June Carter in Walk the Line respectively. And, sadly, though it may be a French film, La Vie En Rose does nothing to break away from the conventions they've set up in this flourishing genre. Granted, many of the elements are the same- troubled childhoods, drug addictions- but you might expect a production free of Hollywood to try something different. But La Vie En Rose is as movie as a movie can be, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. There's no depth here- the entire life of Edith Piaf has been shoehorned into the film, though large gaps (Piaf's involvement in the WWII Resistance being entirely ignored) float around aimlessly. But there's still so much going on that director Olivier Dahan rushes through most of it- and so, when the young Edith wails that she wants to stay at the circus, we have no idea why, our only experience of that being her being yelled at by a performer. We frown in confusion when suddenly, in a news scene, Edith suddenly has a husband. We laugh when a lost child is crowbarred into the plot in the last half hour. The other main problem, being, as you may have heard, that Dahan seems to have shuffled the script before filming, because La Vie En Rose jumps all over the place for absolutely no reason. Yes, Walk the Line opened at Johnny Cash's famous Folsom Prison performance, but from there it went back to the beginning and progressed in an understandable linear direction. Yes, Iris jumped back and forward, but the dual threads of young Iris growing and old Iris declining also went in a linear way, and the contrast worked to highlight the character of Iris. But La Vie En Rose's slapdash plotting serves no purpose whatsoever, and even works to the film's detriment- it slices apart what looks like a competant performance from Marion Cotillard, highlighting the actress's use of wigs and make-up much more than a linear progression would have. It didn't surprise me when I thought back over the film to find that the film's most successful moments occured when emotion had been built up over a gradual progression of events- most obviously, the powerful moment when Edith breaks down on hearing her boxer lover Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) has been killed, is affecting precisely because the film has invested time in their relationship, showing their flirtation and romance uninterrupted by flashbacks/forwards. There's some good stuff within La Vie En Rose- the sets, particularly in the childhood sections, are strikingly realistic; Emmanuelle Seigner is superb as Edith's childhood carer Titine; and, naturally, the music is beautiful. But it's symbolic to note that when Non, je ne regrette rien closes out the film, it's the song, not the handling of it, that brings tears to the eyes. You'd learn more about Edith Piaf from reading a book. Grade: C-

Tell No One really couldn't be a more different story. From it's genre- thriller- to it's modern setting, this is as far from the fantastical world of La Vie En Rose as you can get. Which one is the true story again? When our hero, Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet), incidentally causes a car crash on his breathtaking run from the police, it's entirely surprising, realistic, and unglamourous. Said chase is probably the culmination of the film's slow-burning grip on it's audience, ending with a moment that would be hilarious if you weren't so burnt out. Adapted from the book by American novelist Harlan Coben, Tell No One has been craftily adapted by by actor-writer-director Guillaume Canet (apparently he was the heartthrob of The Beach, which I hated, but he also gives himself Tell No One's most despicable part- a respectable move). A enigmatic plot is the film's core, adorned by excellent performances from the likes of Nathalie Baye, Kristin Scott Thomas (entirely integrated, by the way), and Marie Josee-Croze, filmed stylishly yet unflashily. Perhaps the film does suffer from a rather too blatant exposition of its plot at the end- it's all done in bugged monologue- but this is still an exciting, Bourne-like (that's a very good thing, if you didn't know) thriller that deserves a wider audience. Grade: B+