There seems to be a growing critical consensus that Woody Allen makes too many films. Not that that would stop him, as the veteran director (this is his 50th movie) seems incapable of stopping. Perhaps it is churlish to complain about someone being productive.

Still, there is a distinct whiff of the formulaic about this 1920’s romantic comedy drama. Even the title - Magic In The Moonlight - seems somehow generic. It is set in the ever-lovely south of France and concerns a young psychic called Sophie (the talented and likable Emma Stone - The Amazing Spider-Man) who has charmed local rich folk with her apparent ability to contact the Other Side and send, and receive, comforting messages to and from deceased relations. We already suspect this is a money-spinning con when professional magician Stanley (stage name Wei Ling Soo) comes along to expose her. Stanley is played by Colin Firth (The Railway Man - himself a bit of a filmic Stakhanov who once again reprises his role as a Professional Englishman. No prizes for guessing who cons whom.

Magic In the Moonlight really consists of endless short scenes of the leisured classes at play. Everyone’s having a jolly good time, as you would if you could spend your day driving around the South of France in sparkling vintage cars having drinkies and dropping bon mots. The film soon gets repetitive (there is far too much expository dialogue which makes the script seem rather clunky especially in the first half), and it is hard to really care about anyone of them or to take them any more seriously than they do themselves. The music too is turned on like a mechanical laugh track. They cannot get behind the wheel of the next jalopy but the familiar Allen style trad jazz immediately strikes up.

Firth does his best as the sour rationalist with a stiff upper lip who longs for the vulgar American to somehow melt his frozen façade, but there isn’t much real chemistry to draw us in. While we are distracted by the bonhomie, Allen seeks to sneak in the true message of the film but we have long since seen how this old trick works. The idea of the old cynic having his life force renewed by the love of, er, a much younger woman looks uncomfortably more and more like self-justification rather than artistic truth. But let’s not go there.

It’s all a bit of a shame as Allen is a huge and enduring talent who has given us some genuine modern classics in his long career. Even his recent Blue Jasmine showed that he can rise above his own multi-cameo, scattershot chaos shtick when he gets it right. It is just that when he churns it out like this, one cannot shake off the weary feeling that each new film is less new each time.

// JULIAN WOOD

Previewed at Roadshow Theaterette, Sydney on 12 August 2014