Café Society

Directed by Woody Allen

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell

[rating: 2/5]

Reviewed by Michael Dalton

Its been a long time since Woody Allen presented a film as visually stunning as Café Society. Decades, in fact. With Allen, his characters always stand first in line but for the faithful,Broadway Danny Rose and Manhattan before it will always be remembered fondly as his panoramic beauties. His deft use of black and white withstanding, the way the backdrops blended with his old-fashioned storytelling and his obvious yearning for the romantic stories of the golden era were a glorious sight. Even in films like Hannah and Her Sisters and September, his use of autumnal hues shot through the love stories like a warm kiss. They were framed with care yet he rarely allows for that carefully thought out aesthetic anymore. Its where the appeal for this latest tale begins and ends.

There are a lot of firsts here. It’s the first film since Radio Days to be narrated by Allen without him appearing on screen, his first full-length collaboration with award-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Reds), the first to be shot in the 2:00:1 aspect ratio (Storaro’s favoured aspect), the first time Allen ever attempted to work with Bruce Willis (it ended in disaster and he was replaced by Steve Carell), and amazingly, the first film Kristen Stewart had to audition for since her unprecedented success with the Twilight franchise. With such freshness, we might have expected Allen to reach new heights with this itty bitty story about a love triangle  set in New York and Hollywood in the 1930s. No such luck. The scope is there for a coast-to-coast mini-saga but the film is finally tiresome and all too familiar. There’s little new in Allen’s arsenal this year.

It’s a well known fact that Allen grabs whoever’s available once his screenplay is completed and he’s more or less comes up trumps again. Parker Posey in a Jean Harlow wig, the stunning Blake Lively, the chameleonic Carell, the wonderful character actress Sari Lennick giving great support (remember her in A Serious Man?), and then there’s Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg. The story of a young man in love with a young girl who’s also loved by an older man is one of Allen’s favourite equations but never has he handled it so plainly; here he’s more than happy to let the faces sell it to us. The misshapen Eisenberg is Bobby Dorfman, the son of a Jewish family in New York, who moves to Hollywood to work for his studio hotshot uncle (Carell). Soon after arriving, he meets Vonnie (Stewart) who he falls madly for. And she falls for him. But she loves his uncle more so Bobby returns to New York and opens a nightclub with his brother Ben (Corey Stoll), a dangerous member of the Jewish mob.

Stewart is undeniably beautiful here (has she ever looked this ethereal?) but she’s out of her depth. Vonnie is written as direct and aware but Stewart never quite finds the pitch and Eisenberg, though well cast as the Jewish boy wandering through Hollywood wide-eyed, never looks comfortable. They have no chemistry, no tension.  Lively comes off well in the minor role of Veronica, the knockout Bobby meets and marries after returning to New York (she’s such a breath of fresh air you want more of her) but that smile and those legs aren’t enough to make him forget the love he left behind while Lennick as his hysterical Aunt Evelyn dealing with a troublesome neighbour hits every note perfectly. Why don’t we see more of this fine character actress?

See it for the richly coloured scenery and the well-dressed swells. They recall those glamorous creatures Allen framed so well in the movie-within-a-movie in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Sadly, that’s all it has in common with Café Society. Its too slight for its own good.