This film closes on Thursday, October 16th.

It’s 1928, and celebrated illusionist Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) is wowing crowds performing as Chinese magician Wei Ling Soo. After a show in Berlin, he is approached by old friend Howard (Simon McBurney), who is acquainted with a wealthy family in the South of France who have been taken in by clairvoyant Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), a woman Howard is convinced is a fraud, though he can’t prove it. Stanley needs little encouragement before setting out to debunk the mystic, yet this proves trickier than he imagines, as Stanley discovers more to Sophie than he was expecting.

Seductively shot on 35mm film by cinematographer Darius Khondji, Woody Allen’s latest is an elegant period charmer which features exceptional performances from Firth and Stone in particular, and mines themes of faith and reason, of love and death, matters which have informed the director’s greatest works. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

IFI IRISH SHORT
The final evening screenings of this film will be preceded by Damien O’Connor’s IFB-funded short animation After You. (7 mins, Ireland, 2012)

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.