365 Days. 365 Films.

As some of you might know by now, I don’t always do research on a film before I watch it. Another thing you might have gathered about me is that I am a massive Woody Allen fan. Now, I didn’t know that this was a film at all associated with Woody Allen (I didn’t even know who starred in it) until half way through the opening sequence – shots of paris, day and night, sunny and raining with old music playing in the background. The picture and music fades to black, and there is Allen’s typical white on black opening credits using the same font he has used for decades of wonderful filmmaking. With no prior knowledge of this film, I instantly knew it was the work of Woody Allen.

If you’re an Allen fan too, you ought to love this story of a man who loses touch with his fiancee and so, on a lonely night drinking in Paris he gets lost and decides to rest on some steps. Suddenly an old fashioned car pulls up and some people beckon him inside, taking him back to the era he loves the most – the 1920s. Each and every night from then on he waits in that spot where, when the clock strikes midnight, he gets whisked away meeting his idols such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso.

You may think that this sounds like a children’s film, or perhaps just a little too unrealistic for you, but if you know Woody Allen you know his sense of humour and, more importantly, his wild imagination. This has Allen written all over it and it’s much closer to his classics than anything else he’s done recently which is brilliant.

One thing I didn’t expect was Owen Wilson giving an amazing performance – not that he is a bad actor, but the kind of films he does never really shows off his talent. I can clearly see why Allen wanted him in this film – his comedy and acting style is very similar to Allen in his day. I never noticed it before but if you watch closely it almost seems like you’re watching Allen acting again.