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MIdnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris title card

Year - 2011
Studio - Sony Pictures Classics
Stars - Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hiddleston, Corey Stoll, Alison Pill
Director - Woody Allen
Writing Credits - Woody Allen

Synopsis

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) and his fiancé, Inez (Rachel McAdams) are vacationing in Paris. Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, but he wants to give that all up, move to Paris and write novels. That scenario is not shared by Inez, nor by her parents, John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy), who are also in Paris on a business trip. They run into one of Inez's old friends, Paul (Michael Sheen) and his wife Carol (Nina Arlanda) and they visit Versailles together, but Gil is annoyed by Paul's condescending attitude.

That evening, rather than go dancing with Inez, Paul and Carol, he decides to take a late night walk. As he stops for a rest, a clock chimes midnight, and a beautiful vintage automobile pulls up, with the occupants demanding that he join them. They arrive at a party, where he is introduced to a Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. He's at first surprised at the name coincidence, but when he then meets Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway, he realizes that he's time-traveled to 1920's Paris. Hemingway offers to introduce him to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to request that she evaluate his novel manuscript. At her apartment, he meets Pablo Picasso and his beautiful model, Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Gil and Adriana take an immediate liking to each other, and he begins to question whether a future with Inez is the life he really wants.

Midnight in Paris poster

Trailer

Midnight in Paris contains a possible homage to Somewhere in Time. Gil is conversing with Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel and Man Ray, and he confesses to them that he is from another time, and that he is in love with Adriana. As surrealists, they have no problem accepting this, and Man Ray says, "A man from the future in love with a woman from another era. I see a photograph." Buñuel adds, "I see a film." (Dali adds, "I see a rhinoceros.")