Very disappointing...

the audience applauded

Nice effects though.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is very nice, to see a story that is so simple and so complex, that it radiates an aura of Parisian passion, the mixture of historical characters is so exciting, and at the same time precisely aimed at a public that loves art and stories like this.

Gil was in the EXACT SAME passive-aggressive living hell that I experienced every day growing up with my arrogant, demeaning family. It was so refreshing to be on the outside looking in on someone who had to suffer through, and finally escape from, the same emotional "beatings" that I did.

Most of the juries seem to have awarded this movie prizes for the wrong reasons: for appreciating a dirty, ugly city and bringing its expired myth of romance back in the forefront.The story is very good, typical WA. The execution is also very good. I mean this is the first movie where I can see Owen Wilson and not await the punch in the face. Yet everything is for the story. Sadly the story fizzes at the end. Sure, they all discover things about themselves. And compared with other movies about film makers (like 8 1/2) this is centered around the story and not the ego of the given film maker. Amazing. Yet I don't like the ending.

This movie is a fanciful romp through time and space in the City of Lights, with a screenwriter-turned-aspiring-novelist (Owen Wilson as Gil Pender) as the protagonist. Its central conflict is about love, creativity, and that funny feeling of nostalgia for periods which you personally have never seen, for Gil the 1920s and for Adriana the 1890s. It is wry, fanciful, and that sort of chuckle-funny that Woody Allen excels at. It is rarely funny enough to laugh, and the series of inexplicably attractive women that surround the creative types of the movie is wish fulfillment at its worst.Woody Allen's unmistakable touches cover this movie, and it is richer for it. The clichéd image of romantic Paris is mocked, extended, and even reinvigorated by his irreverent touch. Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams both do fine jobs, and Wilson's character dominates the movie, but the real star to me is Marion Cotillard's wonderful portrayal of Adriana. She is an effervescent and artistic delight. This movie is well worth a watch, and I enjoyed it a great deal.(I have seen this before, but I last watched it on August 13, 2017)