Magic in the Moonlight

Misdirection: it’s the magician’s friend, and it should be a filmmaker’s too. Keeping audiences guessing is a crucial aspect of both forms of entertainment; however it is not as easily perfected in the latter art form as it is in the former. When the two combine – in a feature about a famed illusionist investigating a purported spiritualist, for example – the chasm between rudimentary on-stage trickery and its more complex on-screen approximation too often increases.

In Magic in the Moonlight, Woody Allen tries his luck at sleight of hand in a narrative predicated upon the very concept, though his fortunes fare about as well as his protagonist. Both the veteran writer/director and his world-renowned magician approach a task of evident simplicity: a romantic comedy that both draws from the familiar and endeavours to thwart expectations for one, an attempt to maintain superiority in the field and debunk a scheming interloper for the other. Alas, despite concerted efforts, both fall victim to their own indulgences.

To most, Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth, Devil’s Knot) is better known as Wei Ling Soo, performing for crowds in costume and incognito. Out of character, he is also celebrated for discrediting those who attempt to bring his profession into disrepute – and it is this skill that brings him to the Côte d’Azur at the behest of his colleague, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). Howard’s wealthy friends have fallen under the spell of a young American mystic who claims to converse with the dearly departed. For the sake of their finances and honour, Stanley pledges to expose the fetching Sophie Baker’s (Emma Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro) subterfuge, but instead finds himself warming to her talents.

For a filmmaker with 45 features on his resume, avoiding the traps of thematic complacency and self-cannibalism is no mean feat – and it is here that Allen squanders his set-up. Magic in the Moonlight swiftly unfurls as an intriguing, if slightly too cute, idea, undone in its routine assemblage of the helmer’s usual components. Returning to the 1920s timing and French locale of his best-received effort of the last decade, Midnight in Paris, not to mention its mischievous mystery, he follows too firmly in his own footsteps. The banter between a coupling both amorous and adversarial also falls straight from the bulk of his output, and his usual aesthetic flair – with regular cinematographer Darius Khondji (To Rome with Love) gorgeously lensing the Riviera’s golden hues – remains evident.

Relying upon so many of his trademarks may not have detracted from the final product if charisma had radiated as gleefully as it has from many of his best offerings, but becoming enraptured in a feature’s allure is difficult when the material proves both lightweight and lazy. The central gambit of the narrative is treated in almost cursory fashion – the script wants to toy and tease, yet can’t help making the overall outcome much too apparent. It is thus left to a committed cast to sell the enigma; however the age-inappropriate pairing of Firth and Stone doesn’t help matters. Both suit their characters – him wryly cynical, her engagingly spirited – but comprise an ill-matched fit as romantic options. Hamish Linklater (The Angriest Man in Brooklyn), Jacki Weaver (Stoker) and Marcia Gay Harden (Parkland) add further texture, though largely languish in the background.

Accordingly, Magic in the Moonlight breezily swans by with all the appearances of a vintage hit, and even a dashing of wit, but does little more than limp through the thoroughly expected. Literally adding enchantment to a feature’s moniker does not make for a wondrous film, nor does slapping together a greatest hits package with the unfulfilled promise of playfulness. The true misdirection that eventuates is proposing a charmed spin but being unable to deliver; the template goes one way, and interest goes another.