The trailer for Emma Stone’s first role in a Woody Allen-directed film is here. Magic In The Moonlight is set in the south of France in the 1920s and is shot beautifully features that sort of happy-go-lucky incidental music that features so heavily in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Emma plays Sophie, a fake spirit medium who’s swindling a rich family by pretending to have visions into their souls or something. And she does this all while looking as if butter wouldn’t melt. Colin Firth is Stanley, the man sent to the house to expose Sophie. However, as they spend more time together, he realises there's something quite magical about her, and their relationship. Basically, the film looks really charming – and we kind of want to see it already. But at the same time we're more than a little conflicted about watching (and enjoying) it –not least because the potential love story between the two leads features an IRL age difference of 28 years (Colin’s 53, Emma’s 25), which is a little bit on the creepy side given Woody Allen's well-documented history.
As well as starting a relationship with then-girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn when he was 58 and she was 19 (they later went on to marry, and are still together), a 1992 Vanity Fair article alleged that he also abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who was seven years old at the time. These claims were revisited earlier this year when Dylan went on the record to tell her story. At the end of her open letter, she named and shamed actors who have worked with him in the past, including Diane Keaton, Cate Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson for their silence on the matter (several have since said that they believe him, or that in lieu of any official charges being made against him it's not their place to say).
But should we care about real life when it comes to Woody Allen’s art? As easy as it would be to reject all of Allen’s work wholesale going forward, it’s important to remember that he's never been charged, let alone convicted of any crime, unlike convicted paedophile Ian Watkins, whose band Lostprophets’ music is still on sale and still being bought after he was sentenced to 35 years in jail for charges including attempted rape of an infant. And his work doesn’t so directly allude to the alleged abuses – whereas you could say that R Kelly’s sexually-charged lyrics are impossible to mentally untether from those public records of affadavits 14 year old girls gave about the abuses he paid settlement costs to keep out of court.
So, for some much-needed perspective, let us turn once again, to the wise words of Lena Dunham. ‘In the latest Woody Allen debate I’m decidedly pro-Dylan Farrow and decidedly disgusted with Woody Allen’s behavior. But for me, when people go through his work and comb through it for references to child molestation, that’s not the fucking point.’
What is the point, then? That Dylan can get the support she needs to go the necessary route – through courts, not celebrities – to get justice done by her allegations, whatever that outcome might be.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.