Magic in the Moonlight

Filmed in the south of France, Magic in the Moonlight was written and directed by Academy Award winner, Woody Allen. Starring Eileen Atkins, Colin Firth, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney, Emma Stone and Jacki Weaver. It currently has a worldwide gross of $17.8 million.

Set on the French Riviera in the 1920s, Stanley Crawford (Firth) is the globally famous magician Wei Ling Soo. His friend, Howard Burkan (McBurney) enlists him to expose Sophie Baker (Stone), an American clairvoyant and mystic, as a fraud. However, the more time Stanley spends with Baker, the more he comes to question his cynical outlook on life.

It’s safe to say that while Magic in the Moonlight is a mostly enjoyable film, it certainly isn’t one of Allen’s best works. While the story itself is interesting with great acting, it feels very rushed and the characters seem underdeveloped.

Firth’s acting in the film is the best aspect of the film, perfectly able to come off as a sarcastic cynical nihilist. He is the one to add to most of the film’s humor with nothing but the driest wit and also manages to do very well in portraying a man solely based in reason and facts exposed to love for the first time.

This also makes for a great story. Crawford, sent to expose Baker, can’t seem to find anything that would give her up. And she keeps astounding him so much that he starts to wonder if there death really is the end to life. But just as soon as he starts to believe in a higher power, he immediately dismisses it and works harder in exposing her. What makes it great is when Baker makes him experience life differently. At the end, he comes to a sort of middle ground, realizing that what he felt was love, which astounds him because it makes him seem irrational and unscientific. It’s as if Allen is telling the audience to be skeptical, but don’t be so skeptical to miss out on love. However, what makes the story only mostly enjoyable is the age difference, with Firth being 28 years older than Stone.

The film as also paced too fast and could have been about half an hour to 45 minutes longer. Crawford shifting from cynic to optimist back to cynic and eventually towards the middle ground kind of happens too fast. The romantic aspect of the film is also rushed and in some areas feels like it has to back up. This can be seen when Baker is questioning Crawford about seeing her as a woman with him mincing his words, even though the two have already had moments earlier in the film.

The pacing does lend a hand to the underdeveloped nature of the characters. He’s the cynic yearning to believe in something, which ends up being love. She’s the love interest that teaches him to love. What makes good romantic comedies is when the characters have more character to them than “wanting to be in love” and “the one that teaches about love.” If only Crawford would shut up for a minute about there not being a meaning to life, there not being an afterlife and quoting long dead authors and actually enjoy something other than Baker, then he’d be a good, well rounded character. (That’s not to say that enjoying the writings of famous authors is inherently bad, there’s just other pursuits in life to complement.)

Magic in the Moonlight is a decent film. The characters may not be as developed as they should be and the film itself should be longer. But the story itself is pretty good and Firth continues to prove that he’s a great actor. 

#4 for New Releases, but doesn't cross the Edge.