Café Society
Beautiful cinematography and strong performances by Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively elevate this charming tale of a complicated romance set in golden-age Hollywood.
After his past two films (Magic in the Moonlight and Irrational Man), which have been rather mediocre to say the least; you wouldn’t be wrong in questioning whether Woody Allen has lost his directorial touch. However, Café Society sees the eighty-year old director back on form with a glorious story set in the bygone age of Classic Hollywood.
Image Courtesy: Warner Bros
The premise is rather simple. Set in the 1930s, Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), a young Jewish man from New York, travels to Hollywood to try and pursue a new career with the help of his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a powerful talent agent, high-up in the film industry. While in Tinseltown, Bobby meets and quickly falls in love with Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), one of Phil’s secretaries. Sadly, Vonnie has a boyfriend, a man who significantly complicates things further into the film. Café Society tracks Bobby’s journey from falling in love in Los Angeles, to returning to New York heartbroken, where he subsequently begins to run a very high-end nightclub with his gangster brother, Ben (Corey Stoll), and meets his wife, Veronica Hayes (Blake Lively).
Café Society sees the eighty-year old director back on form with a glorious story set in the bygone age of Classic Hollywood.
Eisenberg and Carrell give good performances respectively, although it is Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively who excel and give this frothy film a bit of substance. Stewart is simply stunning and manages to exert a considerable amount of charm, despite Vonnie being somewhat of a questionable character. Her dainty and expressive face makes it easy to imagine her being right at home among the former starlets of the silver screen. Equally, despite being given a truly thankless role, Lively is striking and memorable; doing her best to add nuance to what is pretty much a one-dimensional character. Similarly, she is criminally underused, and the film would have done better for exploring her character in more depth.
Consequently, character development and emotional depth are where Café Society falls short, meaning no real connections are made with the characters. This is especially noticeable after witnessing Cate Blanchett’s Oscar winning, extremely complex character performance in Allen’s wonderful 2013 work Blue Jasmine.
Image Courtesy: Warner Bros
Nevertheless, the film offers a luxurious look at a bygone age, with there being plenty of nods to classic Hollywood. References to studio heads, directors, and stars appear in what feels like every sentence (there’s even a comic joke about Greta Garbo being off on her own somewhere at a party). This makes the film an enjoyable watch for cinephiles such as myself. Also, it is appropriate that this lavish period of cinematic history is given equally as lavish cinematic treatment, and Vittorio Storaro’s gorgeous cinematography does just that. It is a visual treat and adds an opulent tint to the film’s overall aesthetic.
If films were food, Café Society would be a delectably light soufflé.
The film is not an exposé of the dark side of the time, with the closest it gets to exploring the seedy undercurrents of 1930s America is showing the almost comically high body-count clocked up by gangsters of the time. If films were food, Café Society would be a delectably light soufflé. Therefore, the attempts at more serious discussions in the final act of the film fall flat, and (going back to the food analogy), feel like a bit of a stodge in an otherwise perfectly pleasant soufflé.
Although not as substantial and powerful as Blue Jasmine; Café Society is a light-hearted, amiable tale of a love triangle which is bolstered by rich cinematography and compelling cast performances, acting as a step back in the right direction for Allen. Nods to a visually spectacular cinematic era also make the film an extremely pleasant and enjoyable watch.
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, Ken Stott.
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
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Actors of fully Jewish background: Logan Lerman, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Julian Morris, Adam Brody, Kat Dennings, Gabriel Macht, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Erin Heatherton, Lisa Kudrow, Lizzy Caplan, Gal Gadot, Debra Messing, Jason Isaacs, Jon Bernthal, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Esti Ginzburg, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Margarita Levieva, Elizabeth Berkley, Halston Sage, Seth Gabel, Corey Stoll, Mia Kirshner, Alden Ehrenreich, Debra Winger, Eric Balfour, Emory Cohen, Scott Mechlowicz, Odeya Rush, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy.
Andrew Garfield and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are Jewish, too (though I don’t know if both of their parents are).
Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dave Franco, James Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Joaquin Phoenix, River Phoenix, Emmy Rossum, Ryan Potter, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Connelly, Sofia Black D’Elia, Nora Arnezeder, Goldie Hawn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Peet, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Barnes, Patricia Arquette, Kyra Sedgwick, Dave Annable, and Harrison Ford (whose maternal grandparents were both Jewish, despite those Hanukkah Song lyrics).
Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: Ezra Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, Nicola Peltz, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Winona Ryder, Michael Douglas, Ben Foster, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron, Jonathan Keltz, Paul Newman.
Oh, and Ansel Elgort’s father is Jewish, though I don’t know how Ansel was raised. Robert Downey, Jr. and Sean Penn were also born to Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Armie Hammer and Chris Pine are part Jewish.
Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism: Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.