Eiffel Tower? Check. Louvre? Check. Notre Dame? Check. Even before the credits, Woody Allen gives us a dozen picture-postcard shots of Paris. It’s as if he’s saying, “OK , I’m accused of giving a tourist’s-eye view of Euro-cities. Well, here it is and then some!” Then he settles down to making his lightest, most charming movie in years – a fantasy about roman♚ce, nostalgia and the eternal allure of la ville lumière.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood screenwriter and would-be novelist, visiting Paris with his vapid fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil’s fascinated by the myth of the fabled Paris of the ’20s – and one night walking through Montmartre, a vintage Peugeot pulls up alongside. Next thing, Gil’s partying with Hemingway, Cole Porter, Picasso, Gertrude Stein an🐬d the rest of the legendary gang. The more often he’s sucked into the time warp, the less Gil feels happy with Inez – especially once he meets the lovely Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

Only trouble is, Adriana finds ’20s Paris uninspiring, and longs for the belle époque of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Could Allen be critiquing his own penchant for supposed ages of lost innocence – Radio Days, anyone? But serious consid𒆙erations scarcely figure in this soufflé of a movie. Wilson makes a fair fist of the inevitable stuttering Woody-clone, backed by relishable cameos: Corey Stoll as a gruff Hemingway, Kathy Bates a warmly maternal Stein, Michael Sheen as an insufferable present-day know-it-all and Adrien Brody as a bonkers Salvador Dalí. And in Darius Khondji’s luminous lensing, Paris lo♌oks beyond gorgeous.