Film review: Magic In The Moonlight

Is magic real? Is there more to the physical world than meets the eye? These are the questions that arise when master magician Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) tries to expose psychic medium Sophie Baker (Emma Stone) as a fake.

Set in the 1920s on the luxurious French Riviera, Woody Allen’s latest romantic comedy is beautiful to watch and entertaining, as we see the arrogant Stanley’s rational view of the world questioned by Sophie’s supernatural talent.

It is clear that Stanley tries to approximate magic because he hasn’t experienced any real magic in his life, which is touching, and when Sophie displays her most impressive mind-reading trick on his beloved aunt Vanessa (Eileen Atkins), he leaps from sceptisim into outright faith.

Nothing is quite as it seems though, and Stanley’s childhood friend and fellow magician Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney), has a trick up his sleeve that forces Stanley to admit the truth and helps him discover that, ultimately, falling in love is the magic that exists in our physical world.  

Magic In The Moonlight opens nationwide on 19 September