Magic in the Moonlight

MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT         B-                  

USA  (97 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Woody Allen             Official site

After a brief return to the United States with the brilliant aberration that was 2013 Top Ten List #7 Blue Jasmine, Woody returns to his earlier form of making lighthearted, fair to middling films, insulated again from the world around him, writing exclusively for the super affluent, where the extravagance of their luxuriated lifestyle may as well be his reason for living these days, as he hones in on the life of the 1%, alienating a good portion of his audience that find these films little more than escapist fantasy.  From ANNIE HALL (1977) to MELINDA AND MELINDA (2004), Allen’s characters bore some resemblance to real life, showing a distinct preference for the intellectual middle to upper class of New York.  But all that changed with MATCH POINT (2005), one of his most commercially successful films of the decade, moving the setting to the moneyed upper class of London, capturing the places and lifestyles of the super rich where Allen continually shoots in luxurious mansions and upscale hotels as he moves through the British aristocracy, shooting his next films in idyllic European locations.  This time Allen is back in the south of France, set on the Côte d’Azur in 1928, the same period alluded to in Midnight in Paris (2011), beautifully shot by Darius Khondji, accentuating the delightfully sun-drenched afternoons where the idle rich sit around as everyone is overly pampered and catered to, living in mammoth estates, where it all plays out like a dream, written for people that live in a penthouse.  All that aside, however, this is yet another Hollywood film casting a leading man old enough to be the leading lady’s father, where the viewer also has to take into account the Woody Allen factor, as he was 56 when he entered into a romantic relationship with his 19-year old stepdaughter Soon-Yi Previn (though not legally married to Mia Farrow at the time), eventually getting married 6-years later, claiming the relationship is still going strong after 17 years and helped him end 37 years undergoing psychoanalysis.  This follows a long Hollywood tradition, as Colin Firth is 53 to Emma Stone’s 25.  Humphrey Bogart was 44 to Lauren Bacall’s 19 when they met on the set of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944), marrying two years later, while in SABRINA (1954), Bogart was 54 to Audrey Hepburn’s 24.  So at some point the viewer has to come to terms with Woody being Woody, as he stopped casting himself opposite beautiful young actresses, but his feelings for much younger women, perhaps most perfectly reflected in MANHATTAN (1979), haven’t changed a bit.   

Following another Allen tradition, this is another film in love with its musical soundtrack, featuring plenty of “hot jazz” from the 20’s, though some of the popular songs were written “after” the period in question, nonetheless Allen has been jamming this music down the audience’s throat literally for decades.  This film prominently features jazz renditions by cornetist Bix Beiderbecke (who died at age 28 in the early 30’s), while Ute Lemper appears briefly as a period version of herself singing a traditional Berlin cabaret song, “It's All a Swindle (Alles Schwindel)” (1931) Ute Lemper - It's All a Swindle - YouTube (4:11), which is the actual theme for this film, making a much better title, as this one continually gets mixed up with the King Harvest hit song “Dancing in the Moonlight,” Dancing in the Moonlight - King Harvest - YouTube (2:53).  But enough on that.  The film pays tribute to one of Allen’s childhood loves, as he was a magic buff and amateur magician, opening the film with Colin Firth playing Stanley, stage name Wei Ling Soo, a celebrated London illusionist (in yellowface and long Fu Manchu moustache) who makes an elephant disappear before an adoring crowd.  Based on 19th-century Brooklyn born magician William Robinson (aka Chung Ling Soo), who was a Houdini-like stage presence, eventually undone by his failure to catch a fatal bullet during a live performance.  Robinson maintained his faux Chinese identity, never spoke onstage, and used an interpreter whenever he spoke to journalists.  He was the author of the book Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena (1898), which exposed the tricks of psychic slate writing, a practice of producing written words without consciously writing them, words supposedly arisen from a spirit or supernatural force, exposing a number of devices that fraudulent mediums use to pretend to contact the world of the dead.  Oddly enough, that is the subject of the film, as Stanley is approached backstage by a fellow illusionist Howard (Simon McBurney), who turns to his childhood friend as he is the ultimate authority on debunking sham mystics of all sorts, “from the séance table to the Vatican and beyond.” 

Howard has been in contact with a wealthy Pittsburgh industrial family living in the south of France, where the lady of the house (Jacki Weaver) is being fleeced by a mysterious young American clairvoyant, Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), with claims that she can contact her dead husband, while her grown son Brice (Hamish Linklater) is romantically smitten by the young lady, continually wooing her with poetry and love songs.  Despite his best attempts, certain she is a scam artist, Howard has been unable to expose her as a fraud.  Stanley never met a challenge he couldn’t resist and rises to the occasion, thinking of it as little more than a much needed vacation in the Côte d’Azur, passing himself off as some unscrupulous businessman named Taplinger, certain he will expose this sham artist before the night is done, already making evening plans after dinner.  Sophie is living on the grounds of the estate with her mother (Marcia Gay Harden), where she’s quick witted, but also something of a scatterbrain with something always catching her attention, taking Stanley by surprise when she psychically reveals things about himself that no one else knows.  All his brass and bluster are thrown off track, normally demonstrating an air of invincibility, driven by his super-sized male ego, where he can’t pin down her secrets, concluding “A pretty face never hurt a cheap swindler,” but he’s certainly beguiled by her feminine charm and enthusiastic zest for living, inviting her to join him on a visit to Province with his battle hardened Aunt Vanessa, Eileen Atkins in her best performance since Altman’s Gosford Park (2001).  Atkins is the surprise of the film, where she’s the real deal, adding plenty of spit and polish to her own character, always two or three steps in front of Stanley, wise beyond her years, and quite taken by Sophie as well.  The enjoyment of the film is playing along with the game, figuring out —Is she or is she not a fake?  Is it or is it not love? — and seeing how it all plays out, where it’s Aunt Vanessa who seems like the clairvoyant one.  Perhaps the real key to Allen’s success these days is providing such terrific acting, which has become a staple in Woody Allen films, where everyone in the business wants to work with him.  While it’s old-fashioned and well-mannered, where everyone has to play by the rules of erudite politeness, Colin Firth never talked so much in a film, taking on the Woody Allen persona of an incessant talker, turning to mush and mindless chatter after awhile, quite a contrast to the pompous arrogance of his character.  Perhaps the most obvious comparison are the seemingly mismatched lovers from Allen’s own A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), where the bombastic egotistical hubris of José Ferrar as Leopold finally meets his match in Dulcy, Julie Hagerty, a free-spirited nurse chosen purely at random.  In both cases, love ensues, or is it the illusion of love?

The Scapegoat

THE SCAPEGOAT – made for TV         A-               

Great Britain  (108 mi)  2012  d:  Charles Sturridge 

Well aren’t you the country gentleman?      —Johnny Spence (Matthew Rhys)

This is a small gem of a film, a British made-for-TV production that only the British can make, that is arguably a smaller yet better film than the much more heralded, Academy Award Best Picture winning THE KING’S SPEECH (2010), which is a star driven, crowd pleasing vehicle that makes all the headlines and has tens of millions of dollars to spend on wide reaching advertising, eventually grossing more than $350 million dollars.  More in line with the late Robert Altman’s GOSFORD PARK (2001), an unexpected dip into Agatha Christie territory where everyone knows his or her place and social proprieties are strictly observed, this is adapted from a 1957 Daphne du Maurier novel and a director adapted remake of the 1959 film directed by Robert Hamer, starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis.  From the opening shot, the production values are exquisite and the acting impeccable, with one of the best musical scores heard all year from Adrian Johnston, where this turns into a mysterious whodunit, where the clues are continually hidden from view, much like an opening shot from cinematographer Matt Gray of a mammoth country estate shrouded in fog.  As the director of Brideshead Revisited (1981), it’s clear Sturridge loves big houses.  A teacher is seen leaving a young boy’s academy, apparently due to a change in curriculum from Greek to conversational French, where John Standing (Matthew Rhys) walks into town where he plans on catching an evening train.  Stopping in a local pub, he’s about to leave when he receives someone else’s change, catching a glimpse of that other person who looks surprisingly like himself.  As it turns out they are exact doubles who share no family history, where the other person’s name is John Spence (played by the same actor in dual roles), as the two talk well into the night getting acquainted. 

Set in 1952, a time when Britain is preparing for a coronation, a ritual that has gone largely unchanged for the past thousand years, as Elizabeth II ascends to the throne the instant her father (the subject of King’s Speech) King George VI dies, but awaits the actual celebratory coronation before the public and the world.  When Spence (filthy rich with suffocating family obligations) and Standing (free as a bird) discuss their life differences, Spence suggests this void between ascension and coronation is a time ripe for anarchy.  Accordingly, Standing awakes in the morning with his wallet, Spence, and all his clothes gone, but George (Pip Torrens), a gentleman chauffeur, arrives with a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith to take him home.  Obviously there’s a mix up, but before he can be taken seriously, the wrong man is transported to an immense country manor that in real life is known as Knebworth House, located 30 miles north of London, the site of outdoor rock concerts (including The Who), THE KING’S SPEECH, Harry Potter and many other notable films. Instantly recognizable as the missing John Spence, Standing has little choice but to play along, as they attribute his protestations to the delirious effects of a hangover and urge him to attend to the serious matters at hand, namely the family glass business, which may be going under due to financial difficulties, where Spence was sent in a last ditch effort to negotiate a miracle save.  Standing, of course (and the audience), is surprised by each and every revelation, where the introduction to this new world is brilliantly realized literally one room and relative at a time, where we are never sure if he is going to pulled into a secret embrace or the object of disdain.  We immediately realize Spence was some kind of arrogant monster that literally infected everything he touched with a callous contempt for living. 

The curious narrative is a variation on The Prince and the Pauper or THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975), where Standing has literally inherited a new upper class, aristocratic life where he continually has to play this game of filling in the empty spaces, like uncovering all the missing ghosts of the mansion, hoping he won’t disturb them and contribute to the literal undoing of the entire family.  He quickly discovers he’s having an affair with his sister in law, Sheridan Smith, and a French mistress, Sylvie Testud, while his sister Blanche, Jodhi May, hates him (“You disgust me!”) for some reason.  The lady of the manor, Eileen Atkins, deliciously haughty and superior, is a recluse with a morphine habit, while his own neglected wife, Alice Orr-Ewing, is nearly invisible, quick to blame herself first when things go wrong, but fortunately he has an adorable young daughter, Eloise Webb, that almost singlehandedly makes it all worthwhile.  Sorting out the mess that was left behind is quite an undertaking, as there’s a world of responsibilities that have been neglected, where the director has a field day unraveling the clues with an entertaining relish, building suspense and tension throughout, especially the secret return of the real Spence who has malicious designs, where he has set up a pawn in the game as an unsuspecting scapegoat.  But in this film, knowledge is everything, as is knowing how to use it, where Standing is a quick learner, an improvement in every respect from the real Spence, actually making a difference when all was thought to be lost.  A battle of good and evil where both are one and the same, Spence is literally amazed, “You’re almost as good at being me as I am.”  Rhys is excellent in the dual roles, where his scenes together with Jodhi May are exemplary stand outs.  Underneath it all, of course, we learn the real source of power is not held by either man, but exists in the stern and watchful eye of the housekeeper, Phoebe Nicholls from Brideshead, who understands the workings of the household better than anyone, where the secret of the film is that destiny often comes from unexpected places, as she’s the one with insights into the newly celebrated Queen, suggesting she wasn’t raised to wear the crown, yet her coronation was the first to be televised and is one of the longest reigning monarchs in British history.