REVIEW

Out in Theaters: ‘CAFE SOCIETY’

Name: Cafe Society review
Item: Cafe Society
Rating: 2.7
Author: Matt Oakes

By Matt Oakes · July 21, 2016

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Woody Allen can’t get the cross-contemporary relationship off his mind. He’s obsessed with it. Fascinated by it. He strokes it like Gollum does his precious. He stokes the fires of inter-generational relations year after year after year. As if he’s constantly reworking and reframing his own internal logic. Grooming his Dylan Farrow defense and justifying his Soon-Yi marriage. The latest in Woody’s old man dates young woman romantic comedies is Café Society, a venture into the lifestyles of the rich and the famous that can be as hollow and pretty as the doe-eyed starlets and pocket-squared producers littering the Hollywood Hills.

In 1930s Tinseltown, Jesse Eisenberg’s Bobby Stern arrives a wire-haired tabula rasa, ready to do whatever it takes under the tutelage of his powerful uncle Phil (Steve Carell engaging in more fine theatrical work) in order to carve out a name for himself in this land of big names and bigger personalities.

An early scene that has Eisenberg square off with a first-time lady of the night establishes the sexual discomfort Allen fans are familiar with, allowing Eisenberg to shape his Woody proxy in brutally awkward ways. And finding a good amount of giggles along the way. As inconsistent as Café Society proves to be, there is no denying the wave of charm and thorny humor that infects that lovely first act.

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Kristen Stewart continues to refine her movie persona as the complex vixen Vonnie, a small town girl whose affections are trapped betwixt the up-and-coming Bobby and his successful uncle. Her struggle is genuine and complicated by competing desires though there is something to be said about her primary narrative thrust is contained to “which man would I rather end up with?”

Stewart lends the role a soft shade that balances the more realist aspects of her character and the counterbalance of the two make for one of the most interesting women to grace a Woody film in years. Allen initially pens Vonnie with a kind of humble nuance that’s rare to his writing of late and though Stewart soaks up the role with earnest, by the middle of the second act, his penmanship gets as sloppy as a kindergarten student with a seizure.

Playing against one another both Stewart and Eisenberg offer strong work and make as good a case as any to see Mr. Allen’s latest offerings. But as their relationship progresses, Café Society steers from its noble path of probing the clashing desires of the heart and the intellect into a certifiable creative ditch where it remains affixed for the second half, rear end sticking out, parts strewn about as if from the wreckage of a vehicular collision.

In this regard, Café Society functions almost as two movies with the second half operating as a kind of sequel to the affairs of the first. By the hour mark, characters are but shades of their former selves. The setting has flown from sun-bathed Los Angeles to swanky New York City. The velvet rope is lifted for new characters to crowd the stage. The girdle keeping the story trim and sightly is loosened to reveal a bulging mass of fat and gristle.

Blake Lively and Corey Stoll occupy subplots that fail to complicate the plight of the central romantic duo, which is troubling considering that one entangles Bobby in mob-operated business venture while the other supposedly claims a hold on his heart. That little complication comes of additions seemingly created to complicate is a testament to the failure of the later rocky motions of Café Society.

Peg Allen as we have, there’s no denying his acute ability to surround himself with big talent, which in turn lends Café Society so much of its casual charm. The production design from Santo Loquasto (Blue Jasmine, Bullets Over Broadway) and costumes from Regina Graves (The Knick, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) are lavish and transportive, tossing us back in time nearly a century to a time that still holds compelling parallels to our own.

Vittorio Storaro’s (Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor) cinematography is stoic and watchful, a dancer sweeping across the the hardwood floors of a high-styled night club or soaking up the salt and sea of California’s pristine shorelines. It makes for one of Allen’s most visual outings of his near 50 films. Even Woody’s own phony voiced-over prose have their kind of aw-shucks appeal and he does manage to craft a meaningful closing shot. If only the man could rediscover how to make a damn third act.

CONCLUSION: Not without its charm, Woody Allen’s ‘Café Society’ has huge appeal in Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg’s lively performances but the laughs dry up early and make way for a convoluted second half that quickly overwhelms the strength of its earlier sections.