3.5 stars (out of 5)
Continuing his policy of following a hit (especially a darker-hued hit) with something light and frothy, writer/director Woody Allen’s next trick after Blue Jasmine is a period comedy with a distinctly silly edge all about his interest in the supernatural and metaphysical (see The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, Shadows And Fog, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and so on – and on).
In a sometimes unconvincing 1920s, we meet Englishman Stanley (Colin Firth, a little forced), a master magician with a popular stage show where he dresses up as the Fu Manchu-like ‘Wei Ling Soo’ and performs amazing illusionist feats. He’s a stubbornly, even maddeningly rational sort, and that’s the reason why his old colleague Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney) summons him to the Côte d’Azur to unmask a supposed spiritualist who, it seems, is fleecing the Catledges, a family of very Woody-ish society sorts. When Stanley actually gets there and finds that said spiritualist is winsome American Sophie (Emma Stone), he sits in on séances and tries to debunk her visions, but is soon hopelessly convinced that she’s the real thing. Damn her big eyes.
With one of Allen’s always impressive casts, including Eileen Atkins as Stanley’s Aunt Vanessa, Marcia Gay Harden as Sophie’s Mom, Hamish Linklater as the goofball Brice and, yes it’s true, Jacki Weaver, it’s surprising that the best performance here isn’t by Firth but by Stone, the biggest star on display. Looking great in ‘20s fashions, charmingly clairvoyant and surely rejecting a massive payday she could have enjoyed making some dire Hollywood blockbuster, she’s so funny and sweet we don’t mind if she’s a fraud or not.
I Wake Up Screening 