Review: Magic in the Moonlight
Berlin, 1928. The celebrated magician Wei Ling-Soo rivets the audience as he saws a woman in half, makes an elephant disappear, and transports himself from a sarcophagus to a nearby chair. Under the yellowface and Fu Manchu mustache, he is Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth), a renowned debunker of sham mystics and false mediums.
His old friend and fellow prestidigitator Howard (Simon McBurney) approaches him backstage and lays out a tempting proposition. The Catledges, a wealthy Pittsburgh family summering in the South of France, have become taken with the predictions of one spirit medium named Sophie Baker (Emma Stone). The matriarch Grace (Jacki Weaver) has already agreed to fund a foundation in her name while son Brice (Hamish Linklater), the heir to the fortune, is so lovestruck that he serenades Sophie when not proposing marriage.
Howard has already done his utmost to suss out the tricks behind her clairvoyant powers but to no avail. Can Stanley forego his holiday to the Galapagos with his ideally suited mate Grace (Catherine McCormack) to unmask Sophie as a charlatan? As an added bonus, Stanley can visit his dear Aunt Vanessa (the brilliant Eileen Atkins). Stanley, ever the conceited rationalist, agrees: "She won't fool me."
Yet once Stanley meets the radiant Sophie, he can't deny the accuracy of her so-called mental impressions. She wonders if he's from the Orient, talks of an uncle that drowned himself, and correctly senses a secret affair between Vanessa and a married member of Parliament. "The more I watch her, the more I'm stumped," Stanley admits. Could Sophie Baker truly be the genuine article?
After the Streetcar Named Desire intensity of last year's Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen retreats to the Pygmalionesque froth of Magic in the Moonlight. Though serious themes of rationalism versus delusion, science versus religion, faith in fact versus belief in folly are bandied about, this is not a discourse on philosophy or ideology though it makes a strong case for letting a bit of magic in our lives.
Though Firth and Stone shine individually, it's slightly difficult to accept them as a romantic pair given their scant chemistry when the cards of love are laid bare. It's more believable and entertaining to witness the slow erosion of Stanley's rationality and his subsequent Sheldon Cooperesque view of her as an object of affection.
While Magic in the Moonlight lies firmly in the middle spectrum as far as Allen's late career work is concerned, its charms are undeniable. Darius Khondji captures the natural light of the French Riviera, the soundtrack pairs the classical with the American songbook standards, and there is impeccable production and costume design courtesy of Anne Seibel and Sonia Grande respectively. More than anything, Magic in the Moonlight harks back to the sumptuously produced MGM films of the Thirties and Forties. One could easily picture the same plot with Robert Montgomery as Stanley, Carole Lombard or Margaret Sullavan as Sophie, Lew Ayres as Brice, Edna May Oliver as Aunt Vanessa, Spring Byington as Grace, and Edward Everett Horton as Howard; with costumes by Adrian and art direction by Cedric Gibbons and directed by George Cukor, Frank Borzage or Preston Sturges.
Magic in the Moonlight
Directed by: Woody Allen
Written by: Woody Allen
Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Eileen Atkins, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney, Jacki Weaver, Catherine McCormack
