Corporate Video Production: What Film Are We Watching?
This week at Crash Symphony Productions, in order to inform our approach to corporate video production, we’re watching Magic in the Moonlight the 2014 film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone.
The film centres around the characters of Emma Stone and Colin Firth, the former of which is a psychic and reader, and the latter of which is a magician who is a firm and staunch cynic, critic, sceptic and vocal man of science. He is sent to expose her as a fraud. But Emma Stone’s character resists being exposed, and the further Firth gets to know her the more shocked and surprised he is by her “gift” until she eventually convinces him of her authenticity and his whole world is turned upside down: for the better.
What this film excels in is aesthetic. The beauty of the cinematography really brings out the beautifully reconstructed period sets and outfits. It looks like a 1920s dream.
Where the film falls down is its writing. The plot is a bit formulaic and unnatural. The love story is not that believable, at least in the way in which it unfolds towards the end, the lead up is quite good. It gets bogged down in trying to be surprising and clever, but it just rings hollow in the end, unfortunately. It loses its heart, and the age gap between the two love interests stamp it as an unquestionable Allen film, as does the writing and the dialogue.
There are certainly redeeming aspects, that are equally matched, if not slightly overcast by its faults. Firth and Stone’s performances are both solid, despite the lack of material they both seemed to be left with. The first half was a lot better than the second.
