First of all, one must excuse that Colin Firth is almost 30 years older than Emma Stone (28 years, 1 month and 27 days to be exact) in order to feel the least bit comfortable watching Magic in the Moonlight. After all, a romance with a man twice your age is creepy in all world’s but Woody Allen‘s. If we can forgive him this gross miscalculation of acceptable age gaps – allowing that it’s not some dolled-up plea bargain appealing to our more arcane, patriarchal notions of male-female relationships – then there’s much to love about Magic in the Moonlight; Colin Firth, pithy dialogue thrown away like used handkerchiefs, a prevailing sense of misanthropic disillusionment with the world. Ahhhh, all the Woody standards are carved aptly and well displayed. Well, all but one.
In his celebrated past, Woody Allen has been the harbinger of great female roles. With Annie Hall, he introduced us to a wise-cracking, no-nonsense, nouveau flapper-type that may as well have been beamed in from the roaring 20s. In Manhattan, Woody’s bittersweet, troglodyte edge was a perfect cocktail when mixed with Mary Wilkie’s vibrant, larger-than-life pomposity. Diane Keaton‘s star has never shined so bright.
To this day, that helplessly neurotic, New York, near-messianic Jewish comedian turned filmmaker is still hailed as one of the original feminist filmmakers. Set on a diabolical heading to disprove Hollywood standards that women are but window dressings in a Bechdel Test-less world, Woody introduced the world to the chick with attitude. With Moonlight though, it’s as if he’s forgotten his roots, offering a female character, a la the lovely Emma Stone, who is but a circumstance to the masculine manipulation storming around her. If Woody has neglected one thing here, to the chagrin of his story and film, it’s to round out his leading lady; a charge rarely brought against the man. After all, without Woody’s squally writing to back her up, Cate Blanchett wouldn’t be an Academy Award winner as of this year.
His latest yarn falls into place when a world renown magician, Stanley (Firth), catches wind of a youthful psychic, Sophie (Stone), who’s taken up with a wealthy clan of manicured socialite oafs, predicting future dalliances and offering tranquilizing reassurances on events past. A dear friend of Stanley’s – close colleague and rival magician, Howard (Simon McBurney) – has already been up to visit the bewitching mystic but can’t figure out any of her parlor tricks. Howard insists that she looks like the real deal.
In keeping with past practices, Stanley sets out to debunk her, as he has with many palm readers, seanse-seers and prophets and prophetesses past. Sophie’s the coquettish type but beneath her fawn-worthy veneer, she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or so Stanley is intent to prove. When he lays eyes on her though, he’s just as likely to fall under her spell as he is to reveal her gambit for what it is.
That spell she so casually casts is as much misdirection as erection. Certainly not hard to look at, she’s a soothsayer that soothes his sai of a personality. She may be an oracle but it looks like he just wants to cull some oral from her (Heyo!) And though it’s kinda icky having a 53-year old man ogle the 25-year old Stone, it sets the scene for some rib-tickling comedic beats, particularly when Firth’s firing off in sardonic, breathy outbursts.
As the more carnal elements of unforeseeable affection takes the forefront in the later minutes, Woody’s film turns from a terse zing-fest into a cloying bout of love tennis; a ball-less Match Point, if you will. For it’s not Stanley’s courtship but his crustiness that churns out the chuckles. In truth, the deeper he falls for Sophie, the less compelling his character and the film as a whole.
And then there’s Stone. For all Sophie’s underwritten flatness, Stone gives her all, grasping at straws to give depth to a plateau of a character. It’s unfortunate that Woody of all people would settle on characterization a la strawberry hair and sweet ta-ta’s but Stone’s natural hippy chic aura matches up nicely with Sophie’s blander elements.
Throwaway character though Stone’s may be, Firth’s is an absolute delight. The berserk pragmatist may be far preferable to the man suffering oleaginous love fits, but Firth plays both brilliantly, offering up one of the finest, and certainly most gut-busting, performances of 2014. Manic looks devilishly good on him.
Dissecting Woody’s latest is easier than scalpelling apart a frog. The three acts are built on loose seams, as easily identifiable as cheap Indonesian jeans. And though they might fit together awkwardly, like said pair of Indonesian jeans, you can’t but admire the brilliant recklessness of those first two acts. The result is further entrancing when backed by Darius Khondji‘s delightfully dated cinematography – characterized by a preternatural sense of natural lighting – and Allen’s delicately crafted old-timey but sultry musical score. Though Woody slips towards something far more muted and monochromatic in the third act, the beginning is so full of magic that you can almost let it slide. Almost.
B
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