{"id":1536,"date":"2014-08-25T08:36:32","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2014-08-25T08:41:41","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:41:41","slug":"nothing-up-his-sleeve-movie-review-of-woody-allens-film-magic-in-the-moonlight-by-howard-casner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/2014\/nothing-up-his-sleeve-movie-review-of-woody-allens-film-magic-in-the-moonlight-by-howard-casner\/","title":{"rendered":"NOTHING UP HIS SLEEVE: Movie review of Woody Allen’s film Magic in the Moonlight by Howard Casner"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, a word from our sponsors. Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of 2013. Only $2.99. http:\/\/ow.ly\/xN31r<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Warning: SPOILERS<\/h4>\n

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\"DSCF9550.RAF\"<\/a>Woody Allen, almost a national treasure now as far as I\u2019m concerned, has always been something of a clever parodist.<\/h4>\n

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He can imitate anything, both seriously and satirically, from Bergman (Love & Death, Interiors and Husbands and Wives amongst a ton of others) to Fellini (Stardust Memories) to Kafka and Bertolt Brecht (Shadows and Fog) to documentaries (Take the Money and Run and Zelig) to almost anything else.<\/h4>\n

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Now we have a new set of authors that Allen has mined for a movie. His latest foray into cinematic creativity, Magic in the Moonlight, a story about a magician trying to prove that a psychic is a fraud in the 1920\u2019s south of France, is basically Noel Coward and Somerset Maughm with a lead character that is straight out of Shaw\u2019s Pygmalion as if written by Nietzsche.<\/h4>\n

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Okay, I get it, that\u2019s a bit too many references, you might say. But that\u2019s my story and I\u2019m sticking to it.<\/p>\n

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Too bad, then, that the movie doesn\u2019t really work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, at the same time, strangely enough, and on the positive side, it often works better than most films do that do work (or it does do that voodoo that films do so well\u2014a joke that makes more sense once you see the movie).<\/p>\n

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After all, there is a lot to like here. It\u2019s charming, has some wonderful verbal ping pong between characters, is moving at times, and in a light sort of way tries to have a really heavy conversation about the meaning of life, or, since this is a Woody Allen film, the lack thereof.<\/p>\n

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This last is especially true. Allen is very clear about what he thinks about the universe and why we are here (as in, there is no\u2026). He and his characters lay it all out on the table and are quite forthright. The universe is cold and rational in a machine like way, devoid of meaning, and of anything that hints of the irrational, like God.<\/p>\n

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Well, not exactly. Allen and his characters can rant and rave against the heartlessness of the universe all they want (except that it can\u2019t be heartless since it doesn\u2019t have a heart), but in the end, there is one area where they take an existential leap of faith and accept an aspect of being that makes no sense whatsoever, and that is in the actuality of the most irrational of human emotions: love.<\/p>\n

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Allen doesn\u2019t try to justify it. He doesn\u2019t even make an argument for it. He just accepts it, finding it the only way to survive this nightmare we call being on a distant, unfeeling, indifferent rock floating in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Colin Firth, an actor whose cache has suddenly and dynamically increased lately after two Academy Award nominations (and one win, let us not forget), plays Stanley, a magician who disguises himself in what was called \u201cyellow face\u201d at the time, though here the movie manages to pull it off with so far nobody reportedly being offended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No one knows who the magician really is except for a select few, like old school chum and fellow prestidigitator Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney, the extremely metrosexual husband in Friends with Money), though at the same time, Stanley doesn\u2019t really work very hard at keeping it a secret either.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Burkan comes to Stanley with a problem. There is a psychic who has wormed her way into a wealthy family and Burkan needs her stopped before she marries the son and cons the family out of a lot of money to start a school of psychic research. But Burkan can\u2019t figure out how she does it. Can Stanley?<\/p>\n

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And thus we are set for what is in many ways, a very 1930\u2019s romantic comedy.<\/p>\n

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The strengths of the movie is an often extremely witty screenplay by Allen and a strong performance by Firth who wears his role like a comfortable white tweed suit (it has to be white, it\u2019s after Memorial Day). The two make a masterful couple, as if they\u2019ve been married for years, and the chemistry between the two is palpable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, such chemistry is not as apparent between Firth and Emma Stone, who plays the perky, tomboyish psychic Sophie. The problem is twofold. First, Stone just seems so modern and out of place in a 1920\u2019s drawing room comedy. And though I can\u2019t say there is absolutely no connection between the two stars, the sparks they generate just aren\u2019t quite strong enough to pull the whole thing off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The screenplay is also a bit awkward at times. Though there are some marvelous moments, such as Stanley\u2019s Aunt Vanessa (Eillen Atkins, a grand dame of British stage, TV and screen) slyly talking Stanley into realizing he\u2019s in love with Sophie while convincing him he\u2019s not as she calmly plays solitaire (the description makes more sense if you see the movie).<\/p>\n

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But other moments never really convince. And the reason they don\u2019t is so obvious, you do wonder exactly what Allen was thinking.<\/p>\n

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This is especially true of a scene after Stanley has gone through his spiritual conversion, completely fooled by Sophie, and has seemed to fallen in love not just with her world view, but with her. At this point, he has a clever, Shavian conversation about how Sophie, while not unattractive, is hardly a compelling or great beauty. This is a terrible place for this back and forth and clearly should have been the second or probably third conversation the two characters had, something Stanley says when he suspects he might have feelings for the fake.<\/p>\n

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Because of this, their growing love comes to a stop just at the moment that it should be increasing by leaps and bounds. It simply makes no sense.<\/p>\n

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The same goes for Stanley\u2019s \u201cconversion\u201d scene, where he buys into Sophie\u2019s abilities. This falls flat because the basis of his belief is Sophie\u2019s revelation of secrets the Aunt has rather than a secret Stanly has.<\/p>\n

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The same for Stanley\u2019s \u201creversion\u201d scene, where he realizes just how the con is done. It comes out of nowhere and has no compelling reason. It just happens.<\/p>\n

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This also leads to issues with the ending. Though it\u2019s not hard to figure out how Sophie does it (I mean, once you understand that there is no way Allen is going to side with magic any more than Ingmar Bergman would in his film The Magician, it\u2019s only a matter of working backward to figure out who could possibly feed Sophie all the information she has), once Stanley reveals it, it causes plot issues that again, don\u2019t make a lot of sense.<\/p>\n

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Stanley is actually very forgiving to the people who conned him, even though he has made a serious fool of himself in national press; I never bought this turn the other cheek response (the only part of the religious view of life he doesn\u2019t seem to reject for some odd reason).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even more puzzling is that Sophie ends up engaged to the rich young man (Hamlish Linklater of The Newsroom and The New Adventures of the New Christine) that she was trying to con with no explanation as to why he would want someone who has used him and his family so untowardly.<\/p>\n

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And because of all of this, the through line of Stanley and Sophie never quite works.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the same time, somehow, and so very improbably, the show does leave you with a nice, warm glow. It\u2019s so imperfect, but also so enjoyable and entertaining. There\u2019s probably no logical reason for it (which would probably drive Stanley up the wall), but the story is effective in spite of its many faults.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019d say it\u2019s a sort of miracle if that wouldn\u2019t be just a tad too ironic in this context.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With Jackie Weaver in her kewpie doll best as the victim of a fake s\u00e9ance; Marcia Gay Harden as Sophie\u2019s dour mother; and keep a look out for legendary cabaret singer Ute Lemper in the role of, appropriately enough, cabaret singer.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, a word from our sponsors. Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of […]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[605,1733,1441,1734,1732,1735,1731,1736,1737,803],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colin-firth","tag-eillen-atkins","tag-emma-stone","tag-hamlish-linklater","tag-howard-burkan","tag-jackie-weaver","tag-magic-in-the-moonlight","tag-marcia-gay-harden","tag-ute-lemper","tag-woody-allen"],"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/REAL-Short-Box-New-Logo-FINAL-scaled.jpg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"amazon":{"key":"amazon","url":"","label":"Amazon","class":"amazon","icon":"amazon.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/feed\/podcast\/the-real-short-box","embedCode":"

NOTHING UP HIS SLEEVE: Movie review of Woody Allen’s film Magic in the Moonlight by Howard Casner<\/a><\/blockquote>