Emma Stone and Colin Firth. Photo by Jack English © 2014 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Berlin, 1928. Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” is the unlikely accompaniment to the magic act of one Wei Ling Soo, a caricature of chinoiserie performed by Englishman Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth). The mixture of highbrow and lowbrow is common to the films of Woody Allen, but rarely have they been sandwiched together so crudely. Yet this probably offensive introduction simply immerses the viewer into the blinkered, insular world of the septuagenarian director. Magic in the Moonlight, the latest from Allen, is not a good movie. But it’s very slightness raises questions that make it an interesting mediocrity.

After the show, Stanley’s friend Howard (Simon McBurney) asks the skeptical faux-Chinaman to debunk young clairvoyant Sophie Baker (Emma Stone). Other critics have noted that in the context of Allen’s current troubles, it’s intriguing that the plot of his latest bauble revolves around an older man trying to prove that a young woman is lying. Some may consider this a base ruse of self-justification, but I find it fascinating, Allen retreating into a fantasy world that the real world cannot help but penetrate.

Stanley leaves Berlin for the Riviera, where Miss Baker is “the talk of the Cote D’Azur!” Allen’s script is full of situations and dialogue like that which seem plausible only in the context of his very specific milieu. But frankly, I prefer the fantastical Allen to the heightened Tennessee Williams melodramatic realism of Blue Jasmine. In a period fantasy, these characters’ unrecognizable human conversations don’t ring any more false than any other movie dialogue and even has a certain charm of pretend refinement.

If the content runs from kitschy to questionable, the visuals are lush, with cinematographer Darius Kohndji bathing Allen’s characters in an attractive warm light. All the better to serve a movie that’s a rom-com in name only.

Magic in the Moonlight is as light and inconsequential as Allen gets, and it’s not a good movie. But it’s complete lack of connection with Allen’s or anybody’s reality is startling, which seems to get at the film’s very themes of storytelling and the illusions and delusions we hold dear in order to get through our lives. At a promotional appearance for his new film, Allen recently told press in New York that “life is meaningless.” “In the large scheme of things, only the big questions matter, and the answers to those big questions are very, very depressing. What I would recommend — this is the solution that I’ve come up with — is distraction.” If Allen’s best films have dared to ask big questions, the meaningless Magic in the Moonlight is quintessential Woody Allen distraction.

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Magic in the Moonlight
Written and directed by Woody Allen
With Colin Firth, Emma Stone
Rated PG-13 for a brief suggestive comment and smoking throughout
Running time 97 minutes
Opens today at E Street Landmark CInema, Landmark Bethesda Row, AMC Shirlington and Angelika Mosaic