3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for fleeting sexual candor
By Derrick Bang
Every year, like clockwork,
Monarch butterflies return to Pacific Grove; Punxsutawney citizens await the
arrival (or no-show) of their famed groundhog; surfers brave “the most
dangerous waves in the world” during Half Moon Bay’s Mavericks Competition; and
Woody Allen makes another movie.
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| Stanley (Colin Firth) doesn't believe in Sophie's (Emma Stone) claimed powers of clairvoyance: not for a moment. But his debunking skills get nowhere with this charming young American, and soon he begins to doubt: Could she be the completely genuine spiritualist that the 1920s world has clamored to find? |
The man is amazing; he hasn’t
missed a year since 1981 ... and he compensated with two films in 1987.
An output that prodigious can’t
help delivering mixed results, and even Allen’s staunchest fans will
acknowledge that his crowd- and critic-pleasing smash hits — 2011’s Midnight in Paris being the most recent
— are vastly outnumbered by quieter, smaller charmers (Scoop, To Rome with Love)
and the occasional stinker (Anything Else).
Magic in the Moonlight belongs to the middle camp. It’s
a modest little rom-com that feels like a mash-up of P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha
Christie: a flapper-era bit of froth set in the south of France, replete with
upper-class twits, social climbers and a central mystery that becomes more
provocative by the minute.
Actually, Allen’s cheeky,
dialogue-heavy script would make a marvelous play; aside from a few of
cinematographer Darius Khondji’s luxurious overviews of the opulent Riviera,
the action is confined to just a few locales that easily could be reproduced
and/or conveyed on a theater stage. On top of which, the story’s second-act
kicker would be a bravura delight, live and in person.
Not to mention how much more fun
Allen’s razor-sharp verbal duels would be, delivered by actors declaiming mere
yards in front of a rapt audience.
But I certainly don’t mean to
downplay this project’s equally droll enticements on the big screen, many of
which spring from the feisty banter between stars Colin Firth and Emma Stone.
Firth is all but unrecognized at
first glimpse, in his “professional” persona as Chinese conjuror Wei Ling Soo,
the most celebrated magician of his age. The film opens on a typical
performance, highlighted by his famed vanishing elephant trick, and his
eye-popping de-materialization from a closed sarcophagus to a chair, visible at
all times, at the opposite end of the stage.
Off-stage, though, the magician
strips off the robes and make-up to reveal Stanley Crawford, a grouchy,
arrogant Englishman with the snooty, insulting manner of an aristocratic boor:
a man with absolutely no friends — well, maybe one or two — and a cold-fish
fiancée who seems to respect rather than love him.
Firth has a marvelous time with
Stanley’s waspish put-downs and supercilious bearing; he’s so cheekily
condescending that we can’t help admiring the man’s pompous elocution.
But Stanley’s stage act is just
one facet of his career. Much like America’s Harry Houdini, he also relishes
debunking the phony spiritualists who’ve become quite the rage in the 1920s,
fleecing money from naïve, forlorn and wealthy socialites who pine for their
absent loved ones. Nothing gives Stanley greater pleasure than exposing one of
these predatory charlatans.
He therefore jumps at an offer
from longtime colleague Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney), a fellow magician
summoned by Caroline Catledge (Erica Leerhsen) to discredit Sophie Baker
(Stone), an alluring American clairvoyant who has persuaded the widowed Grace
Catledge (Jacki Weaver), Caroline’s mother, that she can speak with the spirit
of her late husband.
Along the way, Sophie has won the
heart of Caroline’s brother, Brice (Hamish Linklater), who now pledges true
love and intends to marry her.
Trouble is, as Howard explains,
he has failed to determine how Sophie has fooled everybody. It’s not merely a
matter of spirit raps and candles levitating during séances; Sophie frequently
gets “impressions” of personal details that she couldn’t possibly know by any
rational means.
Poppycock, Stanley sniffs
imperiously, promising to shame the little faker, and accepting this invitation
to visit the Catledge’s Côte d’Azur mansion, clandestinely presenting himself
as a businessman named Stanley Taplinger.
And Stanley’s in rare form from
the moment he meets Sophie, contemptuously dismissing her every pronouncement,
even as her uncannily accurate observations cut ever closer to the bone. Better
still, the young woman gives as good as she gets, when it comes to tart
ripostes; we’ve not heard rat-a-tat dialogue this deliciously piquant since the
Golden Age of Hollywood screwball comedies.
Much worse, to Stanley’s
vexation, he’s just as flummoxed as Howard. Eyebrows increasingly arched,
Stanley not only can’t detect any fakery, but he’s astonished by Sophie’s
uncanny knowledge of people, facts and incidents long kept private.
Could she — gasp? — be the real
thing?
We can’t dismiss the possibility
of a true supernatural influence, because Allen has dabbled in genuine magic
before, most notably with the droll time-travel elements of Midnight in Paris. That makes this game
that much more fun, as we share Stanley’s confusion and reluctant, worrisome
fear that, well, perhaps his combatively rational view of the world isn’t as
solid as supposed. After all, as his beloved Aunt Vanessa (Eileen Atkins) is
quick to point out, some matters of the heart — such as love — may as well be magic, because of their refusal to
obey logic or the inflexible certainties insisted upon by doctors and lawyers.
Firth’s descent into stammering indecision
is almost more entertaining than his initially belligerent disdain.
Stone, in contrast, is utterly
beguiling: a wide-eyed temptress who could be an ingénue struggling to make
sense of an actual talent, or a swindler every bit as avaricious as her
icy-cold mother (Marcia Gay Harden), who eagerly presses the impressionable
dowager Catledge for a massive financial endowment that will establish a
foundation where Sophie’s talents can be studied and taught (!) to willing
students.
Harden, a chilly harridan with
dollar signs in place of her eyes, further complicates the mystery: She’s so
blatantly greedy that logic dictates her daughter’s equal guilt by association
... and yet Sophie lacks the taint of criminal skullduggery, which Stanley
would expect to see.
The mystery itself is
tantalizing, the witty banter between Stanley and Sophie an increasing delight.
Several of the sidebar characters are equally entertaining, most particularly
Linklater’s hilariously foppish Brice: a ridiculously useless Bertie Wooster
wannabe who makes that Wodehouse character look positively brilliant by
comparison.
Atkins’ Aunt Vanessa is the voice
of wisdom: a loving constant who dotes on her nephew, despite his numerous
failings, while wishing that he could lighten up at least a little bit. Aunt
Vanessa has a talent for cutting to the core of things, and Atkins makes her
warm, serene and persuasively astute.
Costume designer Sonia Grande has
a great time with the period wardrobes, which also contribute subtly to
characterization. The story’s “believers” are clothed in pastels and white
ice-cream suits, while Stanley and the “skeptics” generally are seen in darker
colors. And Grande excels herself with Sophie’s many outfits, whether the cute
red skirt, white blouse and dark beret she wears during an early encounter with
Stanley, or the delectable, flapper-esque finery she sports during a gala ball.
Stone, to her credit, looks every
inch the 1920s ex-pat American, with not a 21st affectation to be seen. How
could anybody resist her?
Allen builds his narrative to a
clever finale, with an equally endearing epilogue. All this said, Magic in the Moonlight most likely will
appeal only to those who delight in the wordplay and exaggerated characters that
populate Wodehouse and Gilbert & Sullivan, where very minor incidents are blown into contrived dilemmas of epic
proportions. This is a mannered, rarefied genre likely to be viewed as dull and
talky by viewers with mainstream tastes.
An indictment those same folks
likely would make about many of Allen’s films. More’s the pity.
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