Woody Allen’s latest film is a well-acted delight:
Magic in the Moonlight (Colin Firth, Emma Stone. Hamish Linklater, Marsha Gay Harden, Simon McBurney, Jacki Weaver) – The latest installment in the Woody Allen Goes Europe movie tour, Magic in the Moonlightis the most optimistic film Woody has done in years. A wonderful performance by Colin Firth in his debut in Woody World, Firth takes a typical Allen dialogue-heavy script and turns it into a mystery of sorts.
Set in the late 1930s, Moonlight features Firth as Stanley, a world-renown magician/illusionist who masquerades on stage as a man from the Orient named Wei Ling Soo. He is cocky, formal, self-centered, and conservative. When his friend, Howard Burken (Simon McBurney), invites him to the French countryside to witness a séance conducted by Sophie (Emma Stone), a young American woman claiming to be a medium, Stanley gladly obliges, promising to expose this charlatan. Burken is a magician himself, and he can’t figure the woman’s trick. This intrigues Stanley even more.
So Stanley meets Sophie, her ukulele-playing fiancé (Hamish Linklater), and the widow (Jacki Weaver) trying to reach her dead husband. Stanley’s beloved aunt Vanessa (British actress Eileen Atkins) lives nearby, and she is our guide to Stanley’s cloistered life. While Stanley’s cynicism and sarcasm are palpable, Sophie seems innocent and earnest. She also appears to have a true extra-sensory gift. Could she be the real deal? Stanley is sure not, but he can’t figure out her scheme. She seems otherworldly and convincing. In a strange way, he wants her to be special but he is sure she is not. Until she proves it. She knows secrets about him and his aunt. Plus, he likes her though this revelation comes to him much later than it does to everyone around him.
The rest of the film is pure Woody, who focused his murder mystery, Scoop, around a magician. The beautiful photography of the European countryside is more than reminiscent of his Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Match Point. Magic in the Moonlight is filled with interesting characters played by talented actors. It challenges the audience, too, to figure out if Sophie is for real and if Stanley and Sophie will get together in one of those May-December romances that creep into virtually every Woody Allen film.
This is a delightful, fun, intriguing film for adults. There is no sex, no drugs, and no violence. In other words, it is a good, old-fashioned movie that entertains without being intrusive.