FAQ

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a frustrated screenwriter attempting to write a novel, and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) tag along when her parents, John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy), make a business trip to Paris. Gil loves Paris and wants to move there, but Inez has her eyes set on moving to Malibu. Gil loves the 1920s and considers it Paris' golden age, but Inez is more interested in the materialistic 2000s. Gil enjoys walking in the rain, but Inez hates to get wet. When Inez links up with her friends, pedantic know-it-all Paul Bates (Michael Sheen) and his wife Carol (Nina Arianda), Gil decides to see Paris on his own and goes for a midnight walk down the Rue Saint-Étienne du Mont. He is given a ride in a vintage Peugeot that magically transports him back to the 1920s where he meets his favorite writers, artists, and musicians and begins to fall in love with Pablo Picasso's mistress, Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

No, Midnight in Paris is based on a screenplay written by American filmmaker Woody Allen. His original concept was his sketch called "The Lost Generation" (1965) which is on his Standup Comic CD produced in [1978] 1999 by Steve Tyrell, Rhino Entertainment Company, Los Angeles, California.

On the first night, he encounters songwriter Cole Porter (Yves Heck) [1891-1964], entertainer Josephine Baker (Sonia Rolland) [1906-1975], writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston) [1896-1940] and his wife Zelda (Alison Pill) [1900-1948], writer Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) [1899-1961], and Spanish bullfighter Juan Belmonte García (Daniel Lundh) [1892-1962]. On the second night, Hemingway takes him to meet novelist Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) [1874-1946], her art-collecting brother Leo (Laurent Claret) [1872-1947], her lover Alice B. Toklas (Thérèse Bourou-Rubinsztein), and Cubistic painter Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo) [1881-1973]. On the third night, he dances with lesbian writer Djuna Barnes (Emmanuelle Uzan) [1892-1982] and meets surrealist painter Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) [1904-1989], film-maker Luis Buñuel (Adrien de Van) [1900-1983] and modernist artist Man Ray (Tom Cordier) [1890-1976 ]. On the fourth night, he meets poet T.S. Eliot (David Lowe) [1888-1965], followed by artist Henri Matisse (Yves-Antoine Spoto) 1869-1964]. When Gil and Adriana slide back into 1889, they meet painter Henri deToulouse-Lautrec (Vincent Menjou Cortes) [1864-1901], artist Edgar Degas (François Rostain) [1834-1917], and post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin (Olivier Rabourdin) [1848-1903]. Also mentioned in passing are filmmaker Jean Cocteau, writer William Faulker, and painter/sculptors Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Braque.

Gil's suggestion describes The Exterminating Angel (1962) (English title: The Exterminating Angel), a film made by Bunuel in 1962.

When Adriana elects to stay in the 1890s during France's Belle Epoque ('Beautiful Era'), Gil realizes that persons living in the present will always long for an earlier "Golden Age" and decides to return to 1920 to retrieve his novel from Gertrude Stein. She informs him that his novel is making progress and that even Hemingway liked it 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. Realizing that he's in denial, Gil returns to 2010 and confronts Inez, who first denies the accusation but eventually admits that she and Paul were together the past few nights. Gil and Inez break up, much to her parents' delight, and Gil announces that he intends to remain in Paris. Walking across the Seine at midnight, Gil runs into the girl he met at the bazaar who was playing Cole Porter records. She introduces herself as Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) and, when rain starts to fall, he offers to walk her home, discovering that she loves Paris in the rain just as much as he does.

The recurring theme song is "Parlez-Moi d'Amour" (Speak to Me of Love). It was written by Jean Lenoir and first made famous by Lucienne Boyer in 1930. This must be one of Woody's favourite songs—he includes it in the 20's scenes notwithstanding that it hadn't yet been written. "Si tu vois ma mère" ("If you see my mother") is by Sidney Bechet. The recurring melody played on the guitar is "Bistro Fada" by Stephane Wrembel, a modern composition.