Café Society
Directed by: Woody Allen
Written by: Woody Allen
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Jeannie Berlin, Blake Lively, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Ken Stott, Anna Camp
Comedy/Drama/Romance - 96 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 19 July 2016
Written by: Woody Allen
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Jeannie Berlin, Blake Lively, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Ken Stott, Anna Camp
Comedy/Drama/Romance - 96 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 19 July 2016
All of the familiar Woody Allenisms are present and accounted for in Café Society. The lead character is a twitchy male protagonist somewhat uncomfortable around women. He comes down firmly in favor of New York City over Hollywood and a few characters are either afraid of death or convert to another religion entirely just to secure an afterlife for themselves. Café Society lacks the weight of a serious Allen project such as Crimes & Misdemeanors or Match Point and is U.S. based compared to more recent escapades in Spain, France, and Italy. Café Society is not light as a feather either, but it boils down to an unrequited love story where boy tries to get the girl who unfortunately fancies a much older, married, and related suitor.
Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg, Now You See Me 2) joins the long line of starry-eyed Hollywood wannabes in the 1930s. He turns his back on his father’s New York shop, travels blindly to southern California with a suitcase and a dream, and seeks his way in the world through his bigwig studio agent Uncle Phil (Steve Carell, The Big Short). Eisenberg, standing in for Allen here, does his best Woody impression trying on a New York accent and pacing the room full of anxiety as he tries to pay a first time prostitute not to sleep with him; a more than typical Woody situation to fall into.
Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg, Now You See Me 2) joins the long line of starry-eyed Hollywood wannabes in the 1930s. He turns his back on his father’s New York shop, travels blindly to southern California with a suitcase and a dream, and seeks his way in the world through his bigwig studio agent Uncle Phil (Steve Carell, The Big Short). Eisenberg, standing in for Allen here, does his best Woody impression trying on a New York accent and pacing the room full of anxiety as he tries to pay a first time prostitute not to sleep with him; a more than typical Woody situation to fall into.
Bobby meets and immediately falls in love with Vonnie (Kristen Stewart, Equals), Phil’s pretty young secretary. Vonnie shows Bobby around town and they seem to really connect; however, when Bobby finally makes his move, Vonnie suddenly has a journalist boyfriend who is always away on business trips. As if. Vonnie is Uncle Phil’s piece on the side. In typical waffling cheater demeanor, one day Phil declares he will leave his wife of 25 years for Vonnie, and the next day, backs down saying he could never do that to his family. A simple love triangle we have here, yet while Woody gives the film enough plot to chew on, perhaps too much with all of Bobby’s family having a problem or two to sort through, Café Society is more sentimental love letter to old Hollywood and the 1930s.
Working for the first time with three-time Oscar winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, famous for Apocalypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor, all direct antonyms of Woody Allen films, the two bathe Hollywood in golden sunlight. They also shoot on digital, the first time Allen steps away from film stock in over 50 films. The open top cars are vintage, everybody is dressed to the nines at swanky garden parties, and folks go out to any number of movie palaces every night of the week. The soundtrack comprises American songbook ‘30s standards, mostly Rodgers and Hart, and some jazz which everyone in the film claims to love.
A couple times Woody gets overly descriptive of the stereotypes you would find in certain places. In an über-trendy New York nightclub, Woody, filling in as the narrator, describes the politicians on this side of the room, the Count and Countess over here, and such and such actor spending time with an underage girl on his arm over there. I have very much enjoyed Allen’s love letters in the past, especially to cities (Midnight in Paris was my favorite film in 2011), but his love letter to this specific American time period lacks a poignancy his European city films enjoyed. These caricatures are not setting anything up, they are merely asides to show you a certain subset of society gadfly so long ago.
Allen’s comedic witticisms return after taking a break in 2015’s Irrational Man as does the November-May love affair we saw featured in 2014’s Magic in the Moonlight. Just about everybody commits infidelity in their marriages, a well-covered theme in the Allen oeuvre, and the victim spouses never get their screen time to either find out about it nor get upset over it. Uncle Phil’s wife barely makes an appearance and Blake Lively (The Age of Adaline) as another spouse with suspicions is a peculiarly underwritten role. All this plants Café Society as a middling Woody Allen. It’s not as forgettable as its cinematic little brothers 2009’s Whatever Works and 2003’s Anything Else but it won’t pop up in conversation when people start listing Allen Top 20s. I appreciate my annual Woody Allen trip to the theater and while Café Society surely does not disappoint, you probably won’t hear me talking about it very much either.
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