By SETH HYNES
Magic In The Moonlight
Starring: Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Jacki Weaver, Simon McBurney
Rated PG for mild themes
MAGIC In The Moonlight is quite an insulting brand of magic.
In 1928, Stanley (Colin Firth), a pompous illusionist and debunker of spiritual mediums, resolves to expose Sophie (Emma Stone), a famous mystic. But Stanley soon finds himself believing in her gifts and falling in love with her.
Superb artistry isn’t always enough. The performances may be universally excellent, the dialogue is often charming and the 1920s aesthetic is spot-on, but I hated this film as a conceptually-offensive and frankly patronising movie.
Magic In The Moonlight depicts rationalism as the path to bitter, misanthropic cynicism, and it places an excessive emphasis on spiritualism.
Morosely convinced of life’s emptiness, Stanley finds renewed happiness and meaning through the promise of an afterlife in Sophie’s apparent communing with the dead.
Regardless of your stance on faith, the notion of “dull, tragic reality”, and of spiritualism as the sole factor enriching Stanley’s life, should be an affront to anyone who has found uplifting joy in the beauty of science, art, music or family.
The plot is also severely flawed. Stanley is a glaring stereotype of skeptics, his transition to a starry-eyed believer is too abrupt and his love for Sophie makes little sense, especially after a real act of deception comes to light.
The shallow, thinly-written story will turn most people off, but rationalists will despise Magic in the Moonlight, and we don’t need movies dismissing healthy skepticism as a weakness.
