The annual Woody Allen film can be hit or miss, but this year’s Midnight in Paris is a comedy-with-a-message homerun.

Owen Wilson’s character is a Hollywood screenwriter trying to go “legitimate” and write a novel. He romanticizes 1920s Paris and lost after a night of drinking, takes a seat on a set of stairs. The clock strikes midnight, and an old-fashioned car pulls up in front of him, the inhabitants insisting he join them at the party they are heading to. At that party he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Cole Porter. The next evening, not sure that what he experienced that night was not just a hallucination, he tries to bring along his fussy fiancée–played by Rachel McAdams (whose figure ::ahem:: looks lovely walking away from the camera)–to the same spot to prove to her he hasn’t gone loony. Fed up of waiting, she takes a cab back to the hotel before the clock strikes midnight, and he continues his strange time-traveling adventure without her, meeting more and more of the period’s notable artistes. He finds himself enjoying the professional support and personal company of the writers and artists and winds up further rousing suspicion with–and annoying–his wife-to-be and future in-laws with his insistence on nightly “walks around town.”

Let’s call the movie something of a mix like Bill & Ted meets Easy A meets The Hangover meets Donnie Darko. I’ll explain.

The whole crazy misadventure and unplanned ferrying-about kicks off with a bit too much to drink, as in the framework of The Hangover.

The breadth of the supporting characters is similar to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Continuing the time-travel theme there’s strange bi-directional, self-influencing, worm-hole stuff going an, similar to Donnie Darko.

I’m not particularly well-read, but I was grateful to be cultured enough to at least keep up with the revolving door of historical figures–even if I couldn’t grasp some of the unexplained in-jokes. Thankfully, there’s was still plenty to enjoy and laugh about without feeling stupid for references flying over one’s head. In that way, Midnight in Paris reminds me of Easy A, with jokes that reach both the high-minded and the every-man.

(Note also that there are numerous unsubtitled conversations in French, Spanish, Italian, and maybe some other languages I didn’t pick up. While you may not know enough of the particular languages to follow the actual dialogue, the tone is well-transmitted by the acting.)

This is truly a film to pay attention to, be it to the subtle and natural body language of the actors (though some characters are plainly a bit loony), the beautiful cinematography, or the inter-character dynamics that have you trying to think back to your literature and art-history classes. Thankfully, unlike many Allen movies of the past, this movie’s particular twist comes naturally and isn’t a momentum-stopping “gotcha!” moment; looking back, you couldn’t have seen it turning out any other way.

I’ve placed Midnight in Paris alongside Hanna, Fast Five, and Rango on my best-movies-of-2011-(so-far) list. My highest recommendations!