Woody Allen bores into the mystery of the occult and revels in the passion of love in his latest film, Magic in the Moonlight, set mainly on the French Riviera in 1928. A romantic comedy enlivened by scenic backdrops, opulent sets, imaginative costume design, magical tricks, chicanery galore and a great musical score, it’s one of his finest movies in years.
It opens in Toronto and Vancouver on Aug. 1.
The star of the show is a British magician named Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth), who pretends to be Wei Ling Soo, a Chinese conjurer who delights audiences with his sleight of hand. Stanley, who can make an elephant on a stage disappear, is a skeptic as well as an arch rationalist. He despises fraudulent clairvoyants, and when asked to unmask a fraudster operating in the south of France, he lunges at the opportunity.
The shifty con artist in question is Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), a young and attractive clairvoyant and psychic reader who can conjure up “mental impressions,” size up a stranger in seconds and gain access to the “unseen world.”
She and her cunning stage mother (Marcia Gay Harden) have insinuated themselves into the sea-side mansion of a wealthy American family with the aim of bilking them of their wealth.
Sophie’s victims are a naive mother and her son. Sophie has convinced this silly woman that she can make contact with her late husband through seances. And she has charmed the pants off her frivolous, good-for-nothing son, who hopes to marry Sophie. Stanley, a snob and a genius, has been summoned to stop Sophie in her tracks.
Stanley, portrayed brilliantly by Firth, enters the fray in a cocky frame of mind, but much to his surprise, Sophie turns out to be a formidable foe. Although he admits she’s clever, he’s certain she’s a trickster. “The woman is a charlatan,” he says indignantly.
Being “militantly scientific,” as his beloved aunt Vanessa (Eileen Atkins) describes him, Stanley challenges Sophie. “What you see out there is what you get,” he exclaims. “There is no metaphysical world.”
He invites her on a drive, and as he gets to know her better, he grows to admire Sophie’s powers of prognostication and develops a crush on her. Indeed, he readily admits that Sophie has opened his eyes to “the joys of living.” Sophie, as aptly played by Stone, is indeed alluring.
Sophie shakes his faith in rational thinking, and just when you think he’s joined her camp, he has second thoughts about her supernatural abilities.
At the same time, however, Stanley learns that man cannot live by rationalism alone. As his friend observes, “We need illusions to be happy.” As an accomplished magician, he fully understands this concept. All the more so after Vanessa, his guru, gently reminds Stanley that the world, far from being only a cold-hearted place governed exclusively by reason, brims with magic, if you can find it.
Magic in the Moonlight, a reference to Sophie’s beauty at a certain hour of the night, crackles with bright, witty, literate dialogue. Firth delivers Allen’s lines and bon mots with ease and aplomb, deepening a viewer’s appreciation of this vastly entertaining movie.