#Movie magic in the moonlight movie#

A Midwesterner of modest means, Sophie is either a talented spiritual medium or a talented fraud.

#Movie magic in the moonlight movie#

The movie is a throwback to romantic comedies of old with a gorgeous setting (the French Riviera), a seemingly heartless protagonist (Colin FirthвЂ™s Stanley), an idiosyncratic beauty (Emma StoneвЂ™s Sophie), a dullard of a rival (Hamish LinklaterвЂ™s doting millionaire, Brice), and a set of circumstances that puts the two leads in opposition.

But even though heвЂ™s portrayed many of those misanthropes himself, his latest film, Magic in the Moonlight, shows that he can also be a big softie. Actually setting the movie back in time deflects this and makes a virtue of a shortcoming.For almost half a century now (heвЂ™s written 49 movies in 49 years!), Woody Allen has filled his films with some of the most cynical characters in all of moviedom. Perhaps the movie's use of the past is more than cosmetic in this one regard: Watching Woody Allen revisit his old themes and obsessions already feels like a nostalgic experience. It's long takes and medium shots for most of the way. The becoming styles and the totems of prewar luxury, not to mention the gorgeous natural surroundings, make 'Magic in the Moonlight' easy on the eyes, though the movie seems militant in its lack of close-ups. Scott Fitzgerald will immediately light on the sight of a nighttime party, featuring hundreds of revelers dancing to jazz with a mansion in the foreground, with a sense of emotional homecoming. The possibility that Sophie just might have a true gift opens up the possibility that a great beyond actually exists, a possibility that affects the various characters in different ways.ДЄllen's decision to set the film in the 1920s is something like his decision to film in the South of France: No reason, he just likes it there. But the characters and the structure pretty much line up with the Shaw play, just as 'Blue Jasmine' had parallels with 'A Streetcar Named Desire.'ДЇor an agnostic, Woody Allen has always been big on the spiritual comforts of faith, a recurring theme for him that goes back at least as far as 'Love and Death' (1975). In a way, he's a lot like Henry Higgins, and the movie is not unlike 'Pygmalion' (or 'My Fair Lady'), except that there is no teacher-student element to the plot. In 'Magic,' we get a different sort of Colin Firth - starched and stern, as usual, but loquacious and clueless, and a self-proclaimed genius. In recent years, Woody Allen seems to be setting his movies in whatever place he wants to go on vacation. Set in the late 1920s, the movie stars Colin Firth as a world-renowned magician, performing in Berlin, who is offered a tantalizing proposition - to go to the south of France and debunk a young American clairvoyant. It deals with magic, faith and love as a fleeting respite from the yawning abyss of death and nonexistence. If you want to be mean, you can toss the OK but unremarkable 'Cassandra's Dream' in with the bad entries, but that still leaves a 60 percent success rate, ranging from the great or near-great ' Match Point,' 'Midnight in Paris' and ' Blue Jasmine' to the delightful 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona,' to the unambitious but perfectly pleasing 'Scoop.' 'Magic in the Moonlight' is about at 'Scoop' level. Out of 10, he has made only three bombs ('You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,' 'Whatever Works,' and 'To Rome With Love'), and none of those were nearly as repellent as the worst films of the previous decade ('Anything Else,' 'Celebrity'). And already we can say that Allen's 70s have turned out to be one of his most productive decades. It's very much in the pattern of this filmmaker: From the white-on-black opening credits, to the 1920s music on the soundtrack, to the nostalgic-sounding title, Allen is keeping the 20th century safe in the 21st.ДЇor those keeping score, this is the 10th film released during Allen's 70s - he turns 79 in December - with one more film to go. That is, it's good on its own, but it's also good when compared to Allen's body of work. With 'Magic in the Moonlight,' Woody Allen has made a good Woody Allen movie, in all that the phrase implies.