Café Society

Woody Allen's latest, which opened yesterday in Paris and at the Cannes Festival, is a gentle and thoughtful examination of love. Jesse Eisenberg, best known for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, plays Bobby, a young New Yorker who heads out to Hollywood in search of an exciting future. He falls for Vonnie (Kristin Stewart of Twilight fame), the secretary of his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a successful producer, and is soon confronted with the fact that she has a mysterious lover. The resulting confusion is worthy of Allen's mentor, Anton Chekhov. In an interview in the French magazine l'Obs, Allen remembers his own experience in Hollywood, talking to a producer who cut him off to take a call from Fred Astaire. We soon meet all of the rest of Bobby's family, including a gangster brother and a sister who is married to an intellectual, who offers such wisdom as the quotation, "Live every day like it's your last and some day you'll be right." With brilliant cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and great performances from Eisenberg, Carell and Stewart, the film is one of Allen's most enjoyable in years. The poster features a stylized profile of a woman with a teardrop - love always includes an element of sadness, even as it brings laughter and self-realization. A French review of the Cannes opening compares Allen to Ernst Lubitsch, master of urbane comedies of manners in the 1930's.

The movie "Café Society" is a romantic comedy-drama and it follows a young man who moves to Hollywood in the 1930s and falls in love with his uncle's assistant. Woody Allen has once again delivered an excellent plot with his signature ingredients: Jewish characters, the mob, family dynamics, infidelity, jazz music, and the glamorous underworld of Hollywood studios and New York bars.

The always-Italian Vittorio Storaro's stunning cinematography brings back the nostalgia of the 1930s. The movie's big surprise is two newcomers at the time: Jesse Eisenberg as Bobby and Kristen Stewart as Vonnie, who manage to convey all the chemistry of lovers in doubt.

The movie has its ups and downs, but it manages to keep the viewer engaged until the end. Allen skillfully avoids falling into the trap of predictable and clichéd endings that are common in other Hollywood movies.

In my humble opinion most Woody Allen movies have a feel but some you can feel more than others and I do believe this is one of those stronger ones. Im sure it has something to do with the beautiful cinematography, scenery and costumes but also the love story was just so believable and Jessie Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart were just so genuine. Funny I don't normally even like those two actors but put them in a Woody Allen movie and it's a whole new performance. Lastly, I couldnt help but notice that most reviews on here are really good or really bad and that's most likely because you either get his movies or you don't. And I really got this one.

Really nice pic of the thirties. Beautiful paintings but... something is missing the creepy family deserved more... They were funny but not important enough it seems

Set in the 1930s, a young Bronx native moves to Hollywood where he falls in love with the secretary of his powerful uncle, an agent to the stars. after returning to New York he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.

Café Society opened this year Cannes Film Festival and is the latest film directed by Woody Allen. It's a story that mixes various parts of the Allen back catalogue to varying degrees of success. A film that wants more than anything to entertain. In many ways Café Society could be said to restate almost all of the key ideas and themes of Woody Allen's films in one way or another: life, chance, fate, love and guilt.

It also comes from the movie providing the performances. Jesse Eisenberg is so seamlessly cast as the prototypical Allen protagonist that when the film shift from Allen's voice over to Bobby speaking it feels continuous. Bobby's broken heart has caused him to undergo a Bogartian growing up: from a gauche boy to a mature disillusioned man, trapped in the wrong marriage. Moreover, Kristen Stewart sad eyes, throaty delivery and slightly heartbreaking aura make her almost interesting, ad an easy chemistry between her and her third-time co-star Jesse Eisenberg and he fits perfectly into his role while she simply overflows the screen.

But if Café Society is Allen quoting Allen, sometimes literally, at least he's quoting his better bits. Surprise comes from the movie providing the honeyed cinematography by V. Storaro which uses silhouette, graphic compositions and glowing close ups in an often genuinely breathtaking manner. "Life is comedy, but it's one written by a sadistic comedy writer" says Bobby. The comedy writer Allen on display here is more wistful and nostalgic for the very concept of unfulfilled true love, for the heyday of the Hollywood star system, for a New-York of gangsters and back alley craps game and stolen kisses at dawn in Central Park. And all of that nostalgia is okay. Because we were getting pretty nostalgic for the good odd days of warm, witty, fond and funny Woody Allen too.

Make no mistake Café Society is still late-period Allen. Men are described in terms of their characters and complications, while women are still described in terms of their beauty and their effect on said men. When Blake Lively's character motherhood becomes the butt of an exchange between two men, about how women who become mothers devote way too much time to their children (and ultimately not enough to their husband); it's a sour note that reminds us that Bad Allen is always there, underneath.

Overall, this film is Woody Allen's most charming film since Midnight in Paris and maybe most beautiful to look at, maybe ever. It's a little pretty little reminder of what once was