The prolific filmmaker follows up last year's fantastic Blue Jasmine with a lackluster movie that's unfortunately not as enchanting as it sounds.

No kind of chemistry between the two ever arises, making their eventual romance, arrived at through pages of halting dialogue, feel particularly awkward.

A rather lovely cast, including Colin Firth and Emma Stone, is wasted on a story so old-fashioned and repetitive that it feels like Oscar Wilde with a wit lobotomy.

Though Woody slips towards something far more muted and monochromatic in the third act, the beginning is so full of magic that you can almost let it slide. Almost.