Wonder Wheel (2017)

23 Friday Feb 2018

Tags

1950's, Affair, Coney Island, Drama, James Belushi, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Review, Romance, Woody Allen

D: Woody Allen / 101m

Cast: James Belushi, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Max Casella, Jack Gore, David Krumholtz

At one point in Wonder Wheel, Mickey (Timberlake), a lifeguard at Coney Island (and the movie’s narrator), gives Ginny (Winslet), the married woman he’s having an affair with, a book of plays by Eugene O’Neill for her birthday. Once upon a time, Ginny was an aspiring actress, until she met and married a drummer. That relationship ended when she had an affair, and now she’s in the process of cheating on her second husband, ‘Humpty’ (Belushi), a carousel operator. Ginny works as a waitress in a restaurant on the boardwalk; she’s already unhappy in her marriage, and has a young son from her first marriage, Richie (Gore), who likes to set fires. She’s struggling to hold onto her hopes and dreams, and Mickey’s attentions are a way for her to do that. Fast approaching forty, and trapped in a marriage of convenience, Ginny is desperately looking for happiness. But a book of O’Neill’s plays? How much more of a clue as to whether or not Ginny will find the happiness she seeks does an audience need?

Woody Allen’s latest is one of his serious movies, a drama that starts off by showing the surface glamour of Coney Island in the 1950’s, before quickly going behind the scenes and revealing the hardships and the despair that exist just a short distance from the lights and the attractions. ‘Humpty’ has a daughter, Carolina (Temple), who left home five years before to marry a gangster. Now she’s back, having left him but also having been “marked”; she’s hoping her established estrangement from her father will mean no one will look for her there. But when Carolina meets Mickey, Ginny sees her chance for happiness coming under threat. Ginny’s desperation increases, and her behaviour becomes more erratic than usual. Unable to help herself, Ginny begins to alienate everyone around her, and when the opportunity arises to do the right thing, the decision she makes has profound, and irreversible, consequences. It’s a simple premise, confidently set up and handled by Allen, but also one that feels more like an abandoned stage play than an original screenplay. This also means the movie has the look of a theatrical production at times, and Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography stutters back and forth between interior and exterior scenes with all the dexterity of an artist who can’t decide on natural or artificial light.

But production issues aside, this is Winslet’s movie through and through. Ginny is an emotional trainwreck, only taking responsibility for her actions when it will bring her sympathy, and defending herself by attacking others. She’s an ersatz Blanche DuBois, hurting instead of loving, and Winslet gives a driving, intense performance that is in many ways out of place within the movie because it overhadows everything else that Allen comes up with. And Winslet is on such tremendous form that her co-stars have no choice but to run to keep up. Belushi and Temple are good in roles that aren’t quite as well developed as Winslet’s, but Timberlake is the odd man out as Mickey. He never looks comfortable in the role, and in his scenes with Winslet, the gulf between them is highlighted every time. In the end, Allen elects to leave many of the sub-plots and storylines unresolved, especially the one involving Richie, which goes nowhere and seems included just to pad out the running time. Otherwise, the movie’s open-endedness proves unexpectedly satisfying, and though this may not be a prime example of Allen’s more recent output, thanks to Winslet’s superb performance, it’s a movie that deserves a look, if for no other reason than that.

Rating: 7/10 – featuring Winslet on incredible form, Wonder Wheel tells its story as if it had been written in the 1950’s but has been given a modern day makeover; the milieu has been lovingly recreated by production designer Santo Loquasto, Allen remains a dependable if unexciting visual artist, and for once the romance doesn’t have such a pronounced age gap.

Fading Gigolo (2013)

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Escort, John Turturro, Liev Schreiber, Review, Romance, Sharon Stone, Sofía Vergara, Vanessa Paradis, Woody Allen

D: John Turturro / 90m

Cast: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Stone, Sofía Vergara, Tonya Pinkins, Bob Balaban

Question: when is a Woody Allen movie not quite a Woody Allen movie? Answer: when it’s written and directed by John Turturro… who’s had help from Woody Allen in assembling the script. A broad romantic comedy with a large helping of sympathy for its characters, Turturro’s fifth outing in the director’s chair is an engaging, likeable movie that has all the hallmarks of a Woody Allen movie, but then tweaks them in varied and surprising ways.

It begins with Turturro’s character, Fioravante, helping his friend, Murray (Allen), with the closure of his bookstore. Looking for a new business opportunity, Murray reveals that his dermatologist, Dr Parker (Stone), revealed to him during an appointment that she and a girlfriend of hers, Robbie (Vergara), are looking to engage in a ménage à trois. As Dr Parker is willing to pay for the experience, Murray suggests that Fioravante is the man they need, but he’s initially resistant to the idea. Eventually, Murray convinces his friend to take the “job” and contacts Dr Parker. She decides to meet Fioravante on her own to see if he will be suitable. He passes the test and soon, Dr Parker is recommending his services to some of her friends, while Murray is drumming up clients in his own fashion.

Fioravante’s success as an escort leads to an unexpected encounter. Through Murray, Fioravante meets the widow of a Hassidic Jew, Avigal (Paradis). They begin a tentative relationship that attracts the attention of Dovi, who works for Shomrim, a neighbourhood patrol. He has been in love with Avigal since they were teenagers, and he begins to follow her when she leaves the neighbourhood. While Fioravante and Avigal spend more and more time together, Dr Parker finally decides the time is right for the planned threesome to go ahead. But just at the point that Fioravante realises that he’s in love with Avigal, Dovi grabs Murray off the street and takes him to face a Rabbinic court. His involvement with Avigal is questioned, and it takes an unexpected intervention to resolve matters once and for all.

From the very beginning, Fading Gigolo is a genial, simple, romantic comedy drama that does what it does with equanimity, and which never tries to go beyond its basic remit. It’s this self-awareness that helps the movie immensely, and while the characters are largely stereotypical and written in broad brush strokes, Turturro’s direction encourages his talented cast to portray them with small, idiosyncratic details that help enhance the material as a whole. Turturro, both as director and actor, is generous with his cast, and his lack of selfishness in front of the camera is reflected in his largesse behind it. Turturro also encourages his cast to underplay their emotions and provide more subtle character beats than would be expected (Stone in particular is good as a confident professional whose vulnerability is revealed during her first meeting with Fioravante). There’s a lot going on below the surface a lot of the time, and more is relayed to the viewer by the characters’ expressions than by the dialogue.

This allows the viewer to respond to the material to a much greater degree than might be expected. As a result, the movie gains increasing credibility as a romantic drama, and the cast respond accordingly. As it slips off its comedic mantle in favour of dealing properly with the emotional and relationship issues that have arisen, Turturro ensures each development is accorded the relevant amount of sincerity and pathos (except for Balaban’s appearance as Murray’s lawyer at the Rabbinic court, a turn that is resolutely out of place, and is the one major lapse in Turturro’s direction). The emerging friendship between Fioravante and Avigal is treated with a tenderness and a subtlety that mirrors the mutual uncertainty that both are feeling, and Paradis perfectly expresses the sadness and the hope that Avigal feels as both a widow and a woman. In comparison, Turturro keeps his performance reined in, barely moving, and keeping his dialogue to a minimum, and yet still expressing his character’s anxieties and sense of anticipation. The outcome of their relationship is never in doubt – such is the entirely foreseeable nature of the screenplay – but when it comes it, it’s a brief and affecting moment that in a very succinct fashion, highlights exactly why the outcome is what it is.

Allen’s participation is unusual in that he rarely appears in other people’s movies these days – the last time was in Alfonso Arau’s Picking Up the Pieces (2000), which also featured Stone – but what isn’t a surprise is that he plays yet another minor variation on the neurotic Jewish intellectual-cum-nebbish he’s been playing for over fifty years. He does infuse the role with a desperate, greedy quality we haven’t seen before, but otherwise it’s business as usual. Fortunately, Allen’s presence doesn’t overwhelm things, and his supporting role is integrated effectively into the main storyline. Again, there are many similarities between this movie and others that Allen has made over the years, enough perhaps to make him feel comfortable in taking on the part. But though his involvement in the script has been confirmed by Turturro, this isn’t a movie that anyone could say Allen directed. Turturro has his own style, and he approaches the characters in a very different way from the way that Allen does. And faced with such a predictable plot to begin with, that Turturro does overcome it is a sign of the actor’s confidence in being a director.

Rating: 7/10 – funny and dramatic in equal measure, Fading Gigolo never loses sight of what’s important and at the heart of its tale: how much we want to connect, and how much we’re willing to give of ourselves in order to make that connection; Turturro makes it all look relatively easy, and does so by remembering that every character (even Murray) is looking for love in some form or other, and that even if it’s provided by an escort, it can still be fulfilling and/or the right choice. (7/31)

Mini-Review: Café Society (2016)

14 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Blake Lively, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Hollywood, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Love, New York, Review, Romance, Steve Carell, The Thirties, Woody Allen

D: Woody Allen / 96m

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Jeannie Berlin, Ken Stott, Corey Stoll, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Parker Posey, Paul Schneider, Anna Camp, Sheryl Lee

In the Thirties, naïve young Bobby Dorfman (Eisenberg) leaves the safety of his parents’ (Berlin, Stott) home in the Bronx to move to Hollywood and start a new life. Taken under the wing of his uncle, super-agent Phil Stern (Carell), Bobby is shown around town by Stern’s secretary, Vonnie (Stewart). He quickly falls in love with her, despite her having a boyfriend, and they spend a lot of time together. But when the man in Vonnie’s life reneges on a promise to leave his wife for her, she allows herself to be wooed by Bobby, and in time he asks her to marry him and go with him to New York (he’s bored by the shallowness of Hollywood and its denizens).

But Vonnie’s “boyfriend” finally leaves his wife and she chooses to marry him instead of Bobby. Heartbroken, and hardened by the experience, Bobby returns to New York where he goes to work with his older brother, Ben (Stoll), running a nightclub called Le Tropical. Ben has criminal ties, but keeps Bobby clear of any involvement. Eventually, Bobby meets and marries a recent divorceé, Veronica (Lively). They have a child, and the club becomes a focal point for the famous, the infamous, and everyone in between. Now settled firmly into the roles of husband, father and successful businessman, Bobby’s world is turned upside down when Vonnie pays a visit to Le Tropical with her husband, and it becomes clear that they still have feelings for each other.

Woody Allen’s latest, annual, offering is an outwardly frivolous affair that touches on many of the tropes that have kept his movie career going for nearly fifty years. There’s the relationship between an older man and a (much) younger woman; love denied; philosophical enquiries into the natures of life, love and art; class merits and social acceptance; ambition; and all wrapped up in a slightly more jaundiced approach than is usual. Beneath the glamour and the glitzy lifestyles on display in both Hollywood and New York, Allen makes it clear that happiness is much harder to find than it appears. It also appears to be much more of a commodity, as Bobby’s offer of a romantic life in New York is spurned for a superficial one in Hollywood.

Allen once again assembles a great cast with Eisenberg as yet another on-screen substitute for The Man Himself, and Stewart putting in her best performance in quite some time as the (not really) conflicted Vonnie. But it’s the supporting characters who steal the show, in particular Bobby’s aunt Evelyn (Lennick) and her pacifist husband, Leonard (Kunken). Their problem with an abusive neighbour provides a much needed break from the predictable nature of the central romance, while Stoll’s droll gangster is worthy of a movie of his own. It’s this imbalance that hurts the movie at times, as the romance between Vonnie and Bobby, though given due emphasis by Allen’s screenplay, isn’t as compelling as you’d expect. It’s the distractions from the main storyline that work better as a result, and while Allen peppers things with his trademark wit (“First a murderer, and now a Christian!”), it’s not enough to offset the familiarity of a romance seen too often before.

Rating: 7/10 – Vittorio Storaro’s gorgeous cinematography is Café Society‘s biggest draw, along with its cast, but this is ultimately a Woody Allen movie that sees him revisiting familiar ground to sporadically good effect; enjoyable enough then, but there’s a sense that Allen’s once-a-year workload is still providing similar returns with each new movie.

Irrational Man (2015)

20 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Comedy, Drama, Emma Stone, Existentialism, Joaquin Phoenix, Murder, Philosophy, Relationships, Review, Romance, Romantic comedy, Woody Allen

D: Woody Allen / 95m

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley, Betsy Aidem, Ethan Phillips, Sophie von Haselberg, Kate McGonigle, Tom Kemp

In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, Woody Allen’s annual offering to a grateful movie-going public was something to look forward to. With the turn of the century though, the cracks began to show, and the triple threat of Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006) and Cassandra’s Dream (2007) seemed to indicate that Allen had lost his story telling mojo. Since then he’s managed to regain some of that mojo but the last decade has been patchy at best. When he’s on top form, as with Blue Jasmine (2013), there’s no one who can touch him. But he’s just as likely to release something as oddly unrewarding as You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010).

Irrational Man, Allen’s latest, is a movie that at first glance looks to be one of his on-form releases. A romantic comedy of philosophical manners, Allen introduces us to Abe Lucas (Phoenix), a philosophy professor who comes to teach at Braylin College in Rhode Island. Abe is a troubled soul, weighed down by despair and the kind of melancholy that won’t let him be happy or find joy in the world. He also has a reputation as a womaniser and an alcoholic, but these are overlooked because of the high regard in which he’s held and the caché the college gains by having him there.

Despite his depressed airs and less than sunny disposition, Abe still manages to attract the attention of two very different women: fellow professor, Rita Richards (Posey), who is unhappy in her marriage and looking for a lover, and philosophy student Jill Pollard (Stone), who is attracted to Abe’s intellect and wants to help him out of the existential crisis he’s experiencing. At first, Abe resists both women’s approaches, and continues to live a bland, unfulfilling existence, refuting their beliefs that they can help him and refusing to accept that there is an answer to his particular personal crisis.

Both women persist in their attentions, with Jill having the better fortune. She begins spending more and more time with Abe, listening to his pessimistic outlook on life and love, and refusing to believe that he’s entirely right. But she’s still not able to gain any real headway… until the day they overhear a woman in a coffee shop complaining about the judge (Kemp) who’s unfairly dealing with her custody battle. Abe is suddenly galvanised into helping the woman with her predicament. His solution: to kill the judge in question. Once the decision is made, Abe finds his whole attitude has changed. He enjoys life again, appears happy and relaxed, and sleeps with Rita. With Jill agreeing in principle that the judge is too mean to live, he sets about concocting the perfect murder.

Boosted by this newfound purpose, his relationship with Jill deepens, so much so that she splits from her boyfriend, Roy (Blackley). Caught up in Abe’s more positive outlook, she comes to believe that she loves him, and does her best to persuade him that he loves her. As they grow closer, Abe’s scheme to murder the judge is successful, and he and Jill celebrate the man’s demise (though Jill retains her initial discomfort about doing so). But when Jill begins to suspect that Abe really has committed murder, her suspicions, as well as the police arresting an innocent man, lead her to make a fateful decision.

Taking Irrational Man at face value, Allen appears to have constructed a romantic comedy that has a few telling things to say about the nature of free will and moral choices. But beneath the movie’s attractive sheen – the Rhode Island locations are given added lustre thanks to DoP Darius Khondji – Allen’s philosophical insights prove less than convincing, and the justification Abe gives for his actions come across as self-serving rather than fully thought out reasons made from the moral high ground. Along with such telling remarks as “So much of philosophy is just verbal masturbation”, and “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”, the movie looks and sounds like it knows what it’s saying, but when Jill challenges Abe’s assertions later on, the hollow nature of his reasoning becomes clear and the viewer is faced with the idea that Allen may not be as en point as he himself would like.

As a result, concerns over Abe’s philosophical stance remain throughout the movie, and Allen never really addresses the contradictions that arise through the narrative’s insistence on making murder into some kind of aphrodisiac for the soul and mind. But while this is problematical at best, the movie suffers even more thanks to the tired mechanics employed to bring Abe and Jill together. Their relationship has the feel of an intellectual exercise rather than the organic outcome of their proximity in the classroom. Jill’s upbeat demeanour and determination to make Abe “happier” borders on obsession, while her change of heart later on is as abrupt as it is convenient for the narrative. Stone does her best but she’s continually hampered by Allen’s insistence on making Jill a paragon of positivity, a decision that doesn’t give the actress much room for manoeuvring.

Phoenix fares slightly better by virtue of having the lion’s share of the screen time, but like Jill, Abe is the kind of character who only exists in the movies and as such is more annoying than sympathetic. Allen doesn’t even allow the character (or Phoenix) to display any self-doubt once he decices to kill the judge, and as with Jill’s change of heart, Abe’s road-to-Damascus moment seems forced. Phoenix also appears to be having more fun as the depressed Abe than he is as the energised Abe, something that seems counter-intuitive but on occasion does at least allow the material to feel more natural.

With Allen preferring to show how witty he can be at the expense of various philosophers’, the romance between Abe and Jill takes a back seat, and the other characters, Posey’s desperately lovelorn Rita aside, fade into the background (and often during a scene). A subplot involving Jill’s boyfriend proves distracting and underdeveloped, and a further subplot addressing Rita’s dissatisfaction with her marriage seems included to give the character some measure of depth (or Posey something more to do than look bored and/or frustrated). Ultimately it’s hard to care for anyone in Irrational Man, and that includes Abe and Jill, a couple who look and sound too much like an approximation of a couple than the real thing. All in all, the movie struggles to address the issues it raises and lacks the finesse Allen has brought to other, more successful projects.

Rating: 5/10 – mildly diverting, and superficially amusing, Irrational Man should be filed under Minor Allen; while not entirely unrewarding, the movie isn’t particularly inviting either, and anyone thinking of watching it should do so only if they’re Allen completists or fans of Phoenix or Stone.

10 Quotes by 10 Movie Directors (oh, and one more by Danny Boyle)

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Clint Eastwood, Danny Boyle, David Fincher, David Lean, Directors, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman, Movies, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quotes, Steven Soderbergh, William Wyler, Woody Allen

Yesterday was Danny Boyle’s birthday. The director is 59 years old, and over the course of his career has been quoted on a variety of matters to do with movie making, both in general and specifically. He once said: “I learned that what I’m better at is making stuff lower down the radar. Actually, ideally not on the radar at all.” It’s a great quote and one that shows the man doesn’t take himself too seriously. Here then are ten more great quotes by ten more directors, all of whom don’t take themselves – or the industry – too seriously either.

David Lean – “I wouldn’t take the advice of a lot of so-called critics on how to shoot a close-up of a teapot.”

William Wyler – “It’s a miserable life in Hollywood. You’re up at five or six o’clock in the morning to be ready to start shooting at nine. The working hours aren’t arranged to suit the artists and the directors; they’re for the convenience of the technicians. If you go to a party at night, you’ll never find anyone there who’s shooting a picture; they’re all home in bed.”

David Fincher – “People always ask why I don’t make independent movies. I do make independent movies – I just make them at Sony and Paramount.”

Clint Eastwood – “When I was doing The Bridges of Madison County (1995), I said to myself, “This romantic stuff is really tough. I can’t wait to get back to shooting and killing.”

Milos Forman – “It all begins in the script. If what’s happening is interesting, it doesn’t matter where you shoot from, people will be interested to watch. If you write something boring, you can film from mosquitoes’ underpants and it will still be boring.”

Steven Soderbergh – (on his retirement) “Cinema, as I define it and as something that inspired me, is under assault by the studios and, from what I can tell, with the full support of the audience.”

Woody Allen – “[The French] think I’m an intellectual because I wear these glasses, and they think I’m an artist because my films lose money.”

Federico Fellini – “Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.”

Martin Scorsese – “I’m not a Hollywood director. I’m an in-spite-of-Hollywood director.”

Paul Thomas Anderson – “Well I’d really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he’s still the most talented actor out there. Maybe he makes some bad choices, which can be frustrating. On the one hand, you want to say, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ On the other, you can’t get mad at him for wanting to work, because most actors would be murderers if they weren’t working.”

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

28 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Colin Firth, Comedy, Eileen Atkins, Emma Stone, Fraud, Magic, Magician, Medium, Review, Romance, Romantic comedy, Séance, South of France, Wei Ling Soo, Woody Allen

D: Woody Allen / 97m

Cast: Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Simon McBurney, Eileen Atkins, Hamish Linklater, Marcia Gay Harden, Jacki Weaver, Erica Leerhsen, Jeremy Shamos, Catherine McCormack

Berlin, 1928. British magician Stanley Crawford (Firth) astounds audiences as Chinese illusionist Wei Ling Soo, making elephants disappear and appearing to materialise himself out of thin air. After another successful show, the arrogant, rude-minded Stanley is met by his old friend from childhood Howard Burkan (McBurney). Burkan is also a magician, and he comes with a proposal: for Stanley to travel with him to the Côte d’Azur and expose a young American woman who is posing as a medium and exploiting Burkan’s friends, the Catledges. Stanley, who abhors fake mediums and enjoys exposing them, agrees to go.

At the Catledges, Stanley is introduced to the young woman in question, Sophie Baker (Stone), and her mother (Harden). He pretends to be a businessman called Taplinger but he is unable to restrain his skepticism, and although he does his best to hide his true identity, Sophie proves adept at “receiving” clues as to who he really is. Still convinced she’s a fraud, he observes her during a séance but is unable to detect any trickery. The next day, Sophie reveals she knows who Stanley is, and she warns him that she really has a gift, and that he shouldn’t doubt her. But Stanley is becoming increasingly besotted with her, and while he has some lingering doubts, he finds himself spending more and more time with her, despite Sophie being wooed by Brice Catledge (Linklater).

Stanley takes Sophie to see his Aunt Vanessa (Atkins). Sophie asks to hold a piece of Vanessa’s jewellery, and when she does, she reveals information about an affair that Vanessa had, and which Sophie couldn’t possibly have any knowledge of. Now convinced that Sophie has a gift, he determines to hold a press conference where he will admit that his previous disbelief has been overturned. The results of a further séance reinforces Stanley’s change of mind and heart. Later, at a ball, Sophie asks him if he has any other feelings about her, but Stanley is baffled by her questions, and she leaves, disappointed. Things come to a head when Aunt Vanessa is involved in a car crash, and Stanley finds himself praying for her survival on the operating table. Will he embrace his newfound regard for the unseen, or will his skepticism return in the face of such a calamity?

This year’s annual movie offering from Woody Allen follows on from the sublime Blue Jasmine, and in comparison with that movie, Magic in the Moonlight is more Woody-lite than anything more substantial. It’s a whimsical tale for the most part, anchored by a Scrooge-like performance by Firth that at times skirts perilously close to complete misanthropy, but which is rescued by the sheer pomposity of the character and his outlook on Life. Crawford’s petulant skepticism and sarcastic attitude verges on the unpalatable throughout, but thanks to Firth, and Allen’s skill as a writer, he has just enough hidden vulnerability for the audience to connect with. However, for large stretches of the movie he’s deliberately insufferable, and it’s difficult to understand what on earth Sophie could see in him (opposites do attract, but here it’s a little too extraordinary).

With its lead character so defiantly unlikeable for so much of the time, it falls to Stone to put some warmth and heart into the proceedings. As the good-natured ingénue, Sophie, Stone is affecting, appealing, effortlessly lively, and the complete antithesis to Stanley, her winning smile and wide-eyed features both endearing and captivating. It’s a more extrovert performance, but with a degree of subtlety that is best seen when Sophie enquires after Stanley’s feelings for her. Her earnest entreaties, and her reaction to Stanley’s dismissal of the notion that he has a romantic interest in her, is cleverly done, and mesmerising to watch.

However, two good central performances aside, this is still a movie that trundles from one scene to the next without requiring much of a response from the audience, or indeed, any real investment in the plot or the characters. The plotting is predictable, and the theme of science versus religion (or at least, the paranormal) is handled with Allen’s usual surety, but there’s still something lacking, a spark, perhaps, that stops the movie from being either memorable or touching. The outcome is never in doubt, and while Allen pulls a dubious sleight-of-hand to get there – as well as twisting Stanley’s arm mercilessly towards the very end – a less conventional conclusion would have made all the difference. (And how many more times will Allen trot out the old May-December romance we’ve seen so often in the past?)

The supporting cast – Atkins aside – have little to do except make up the numbers, and if no other characters stand out as much then it’s no one’s fault but Allen’s, his less than absorbing approach, and lightweight direction failing to lift the admittedly unsubstantial material. That said, there are some delicious lines of dialogue here and there (as you’d expect, even in Allen’s lesser works), and the South of France is beautifully lensed by Darius Khondji, the colours (of the surrounding countryside in particular) popping and flaring in a way that hasn’t been seen in any of Allen’s previous work. There’s the usual round up of jazz favourites from the Twenties and Thirties, but not all the compositions fit in this time, and Alisa Lepselter’s editing often leaves scenes hanging around just those few frames longer than necessary. It all adds up to a Woody Allen movie that feels like a stopgap before the next really good project.

Rating: 6/10 – there’s just enough here to keep audiences occupied, but Magic in the Moonlight isn’t the romantic comedy delight of say, Midnight in Paris (2011); with a curmudgeonly central character holding it back, the movie ends up feeling like a magician’s parlour trick, but one where everybody knows how the trick is done.