Cannes. My Magic.

"Eric Khoo's My Magic, Singapore's historic first entry to Cannes Competition, is interesting for casting Tamils (a minority in his country) in lead roles," writes Maggie Lee in the Hollywood Reporter.

"It could have been a simple yet heartbreaking story about a father-son relationship transformed by magic. What we get, however, is a one-trick pony in the form of real-life magician Bosco Francis, around whose performances Khoo conjures a threadbare plot, 'schadenfreude' coated in sentimentality and a cliched magical-realist dimension."

"Eric Khoo's films are an acquired taste, and he hasn't moved much past the festival circuit since 12 Storeys emerged internationally in 1997," writes Dan Fainaru in Screen Daily. "Exposing My Magic to the noise and attention of the Cannes competition doesn't particularly benefit either this film or the festival."

This is "thin, very unmagical fare from a director who started so promisingly in the mid-90s with Meek Pok Man and 12 Storeys," writes Derek Elley in Variety. Khoo's "recurrent problem of handling feature-length structure and sustained drama plague the movie almost from the start."

Online viewing tip. The trailer's at Zhao Wei Films.

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Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 08.

Last year: Cannes @ 60. And Cannes 06.

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Posted by dwhudson at June 1, 2008 7:58 AM