Magic In The Moonlight ***

 Woody Allen wrote and directed this Comedy/Drama. Watch Preview. Cast: Eileen Atkins, Colin Firth, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney, Emma Stone, Jacki Weaver, Erica Leerhsen, Catherine McCormack, Paul Ritter, Jeremy Shamos. Rated PG-13 for a brief suggestive comment, and smoking throughout. Running time is one hour and thirty-seven minutes.

Set in the south of France in the 1920s, an English magician (Firth) is brought in to help unmask a possible psychic swindler (Stone) but finds he's developing romantic feelings for her.

Laugh-out-loud witty dialogue, a predictable (if slightly unbelievable) romance, gorgeous scenery and a highly listenable musical soundtrack made this very enjoyable for me. Firth is a master of this type of role and Stone was excellent in her part. I never really believed there could actually be an attraction between them as a couple but in the overall scheme of things, that was surprisingly unimportant. The plot has many of the elements of My Fair Lady (especially the ending) and the production look of the 1920s was spot on. I doubt this will be on a local screen for long but this is the type of film you will watch over and over if it's in your DVD collection, just to savor the dialogue. My wife watched this with me and found it as pleasurable as I did.

There are no additional scenes once the final credits begin. A large screen would be nice but isn't absolutely necessary. Theatre/Times.