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Adapting a stage play he co-wrote with Jez Butterworth and Simon Godley, comedian Ben Miller makes an affectionate and promising debut as a film-maker with a story about two desperate London comedians (Johnny Harris as Warren and Noel Clarke as Clark) who team up believing that, as double act Warren and Clark, they can be huge – the new Morecambe and Wise or, although there's no mention of it, even the next Armstrong and Miller.

I like films about desperate comedians, bitter, intense pieces, such as The King of Comedy and Funny People, with jokes and sweat aplenty. Miller catches the dinge of the pub stand-up circuit nicely and certainly nails the desperation. One scene assembles a fringe of British comedy talent, including Eddie Izzard, Frank Skinner, David Baddiel, Sally Phillips, only for Harris's Warren to embarrass himself in front of them all.

If there's a certain sketchiness to it all,...

The Illusionist and Ben Miller's directing debut, Huge, are two of the gems this year

Magicians don't exist is the forlorn message of Sylvain Chomet's beautiful animation The Illusionist, which opened the 64th Edinburgh international film festival. I should think film festival organisers often reach a similarly prosaic conclusion, for they can only work with what's in front of them. But the collection of films on show this year has certainly got some style about it, if not quite magic.

After complaining for the past few years about Edinburgh holding its gala nights in the unattractive multiplex on the edge of town, I was delighted with the transformation of the lovely old Festival theatre on Nicolson Street into an atmospheric cinema. It gave the opening night a real flourish, complete with dancing girls in feathers, a brass band and moustached mime-artists performing magic.

The Illusionist, the follow-up to the director's award-winning Belleville Rendez-Vous,...