Magic in the Moonlight

Superior to 2011’s lauded Midnight in Paris, itself a thematic rehash of the director’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, Magic in the Moonlight is an atypical offering from Woody Allen. A snappy Jazz Age comedy boasting a surplus of caustic one-liners, its characters are afforded little room for self-analysis and intellectual showboating. While Woody has been known to cast leading men as surrogates for himself, here Colin Firth’s protagonist emerges as a legitimate, one-off comic creation.

Blame the prolific 79-year-old's tendency to flood his own marketplace or the re-emergence of accusations surrounding his personal life, but this story of a rational illusionist determined to debunk the psychic abilities of ingénue Emma Stone snuck out to little fanfare. A pity since, although somewhat disposable, it stands as further proof of Allen’s undiminished talent for finding new ways to say the same things. [Lewis Porteous]