Woody Allen's latest is like many of his recent offerings: not terrible, but could easily have been better
By N.B.
THE annoying thing about Woody Allen’s recent films is not that they’re terrible. The annoying thing is that they’re usually good...but they could easily have been better. Notwithstanding a few outright disasters (“Hollywood Ending” and “Scoop”, to name but two), and a few commercial and critical hits (“Blue Jasmine”, “Midnight In Paris”), most of Mr Allen’s films from the past two decades are of a similar standard. That is, there are so many admirable things about them that their obvious flaws seem all the more exasperating.
His twinkly new romantic comedy, “Magic In The Moonlight”, is a prime example. It opens in 1928 in Berlin, where a solemn Chinese conjurer named Wei Ling Soo is making elephants disappear before an awestruck opera-house audience. When he comes offstage, we see that that this is not his only illusion. Wei Ling Soo removes his make-up, his false moustache and his air of eastern mysticism to reveal that he is actually Stanley (Colin Firth), a misanthropic English prima donna who could be described as the Penn & Teller of his day. Apart from performing to sell-out crowds, nothing satisfies him more than discrediting other magicians who claim to have genuine supernatural powers. And that, of course, is what he has to do in “Magic In The Moonlight”.
A schoolmate and fellow conjurer (Simon McBurney) asks him to come to the French Riviera, where some wealthy friends of his have been beguiled by a young American woman called Sophie (Emma Stone). She insists that she can talk to their dead relatives, and they’re so astonished by her apparent success that they’re willing to fund her palatial research institute. Stanley can’t resist the opportunity to unmask a fraudster and vindicate his own sceptical worldview, so he heads for the sunny south of France. Besides, the trip will allow him to visit a favourite aunt (Eileen Atkins) who lives near the wealthy family—there’s a pronounced P.G. Wodehouse flavour to Mr Allen’s story. But when Stanley meets his quarry, the debunking proves trickier than anticipated. One snag is that Sophie’s messages from the great beyond do seem to be inexplicable. The other snag is that she is played by Ms Stone, which means that she has huge, feline eyes, a throaty voice, a playful directness, and a slender figure which could have been designed for flapper dresses. Not even Stanley can stop himself thinking that there may, after all, be more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt off in his philosophy.
“Magic In The Moonlight” is a pleasant, scenic screwball comedy which takes several of Mr Allen’s perennial concerns—the reassurance of fantasy, the lure of the supernatural, the illogicality of romantic attraction—and folds them into a small, neat, prettily decorated parcel. The actors are all relaxed and watchable, even if Mr Firth and Ms Stone don’t have the chemistry that the film requires. And Mr Allen, now 78, pulls off some impressive big-budget spectacle, including an art-deco house party worthy of Baz Luhrmann's film of “The Great Gatsby”, and that opening Wei Ling Soo conjuring show, elephant and all. In short, “Magic In The Moonlight” should be a breezy yet thoughtful delight. And yet, unless you’re in a forgiving frame of mind, it’s hard not to be niggled by its faults.
Indeed, viewers may find themselves subjecting Mr Allen to an imaginary interrogation. Why did he lumber the actors with dialogue which keeps spelling out the themes? Why throw away the dramatic climaxes with such static, rudimentary staging? Why let some sequences to drag on and on when they could have snipped in the cutting room? Why do any of these things when they would have been so simple to fix?
The most plausible answer to all of these questions is that Mr Allen likes to complete a film a year, come what may. That’s a tight schedule for any writer-director, and for Mr Allen it means jumping between different countries and different genres almost every time. Presumably, he’s in too much of a hurry to smooth off his films’ rough edges. But it’s frustrating for those of us who would rather he valued quality over quantity. “Magic In The Moonlight” isn’t bad, but it’s tantalisingly close to being magic.
