Reviewed! Magic in the Moonlight

Apparently this needs to be said – so I’m just going to say it.

Ageing males: young and gorgeous women are just dying to be with you. They would far, far prefer to sit in your wondrous lounge room on a Saturday night talking about the federal budget and strategies on playing bridge and serving you lemonade and cheese platters than dating hot, young guys.

The fact you look abominable these days is of no real consequence. It’s nature, you see – you are a safe bet – you have money, status and um, a nice house in the ‘burbs, and when they come to their senses, the bright beautiful things of this world, three decades younger than yourself, will see what a fabulous catch you are. And come a’ flocking.

Is that what you want to hear?

Sigh.

Unfortunately this is the rhetoric we are fed in far too many celluloid tales. And in a world where fat, greying old farts can “buy” pretty young brides from struggling backgrounds of all types, it’s not hard to see why old dudes think they’re somehow entitled to young girls who could really do better.

And it’s this same, old, boring tale that’s fed to us time and time again in movies that are allegedly “feel-good” – like The Women on the Sixth Floor and Lost in Translation.

Magic in the Moonlight, directed by Woody Allen, starts with a really cute premise – and absolutely gorgeous visuals to boot – so it’s a shame to see it disintegrate into the usual sexist, disempowering clap-trap.

We start off in 1928 Berlin with Stanley (Colin Firth), a fantastic stage magician with an Oriental alter-ego who has a world-renowned reputation for doing super-cool stuff like making elephants disappear in front of our very eyes. His friend and fellow stage magician Howard (Simon McBurney) arrives after a show one night with a quandary – he has met a young woman who claims to be a mystic and a psychic. He is unable to work out how the gorgeous young Sophie (Emma Stone) is able to pull off her miraculous levitations and soothsaying.

Of course, he asks Stanley to accompany him to a trip to the south of France to meet this wondrous wizardress and expose her tricks and fraud.

It is a gorgeous cast, with the delightful Jacki Weaver continuing her stint in Hollywood, this time cast as the bereaved but kindly mother of a young lad madly in love with Sophie (“She is a visionary
and a vision”).

Alas, this handsome, young and rich fellow is treated abysmally by the script as being somehow inferior because he legitimately adores this girl.

Stanley’s aunt Vanessa is rendered beautifully by Eileen Atkins in a clever and sensitive reimagining of Miss Havisham – just as manipulative, but with kindly motives. And of course, gorgeous leads Firth and Stone are both sensitive and articulate in their portrayals of Stanley and Sophie.

The scenery is glorious. The French Riviera certainly lends itself well to some stunning road trip scenes. Plus, the film is genuinely funny at times. But this is definitely no Blue Jasmine of 2013 – which Allen did so well that it left you reeling and questioning for days. And it’s no Midnight in Paris either – a modern feel-good classic that really works. It’s a pretty film, but bland and old-fashioned.

Oh – then there is the actual moral of the film, which does get a little lost, but is nevertheless drummed into the viewer at every turn: do we really need to know the truth? Do our delusions make us happy? Is it better to believe in things that don’t exist, if they give us peace of mind? Is being rational equivalent to being miserable?

Yet, any thinking audience member will walk away with a far more unappealing moral: a middle-aged male protagonist who doesn’t really like a woman who will challenge him and meet his match.

So come on girls, let’s forget about the reading and self-education. Let’s just get on with the giggling and hair-twirling, in the hope we can catch someone as old as our dads.

2 stars

Magic in the Moonlight is currently showing at the State Cinema, Hobart
Amber Wilson