Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Parker Posey
Woody Allen, nearing his 81st birthday, narrates Café Society, a love letter to pre-World War II New York and Hollywood. He has narrated his films before (Radio Days, Sweet and Lowdown), but this is the first time he sounds his age. His narration is a bit slower, but his love for the period is still intact. From a perfectly selfish standpoint, I hope Allen continues to make films as long as he is physically able. He is my favorite writer and director. I'm sure I have made that known.
Café Society captures a time Allen has spotlighted previously. He has even gone as far back as the Roaring 20s for Bullets Over Broadway and Magic in the Moonlight. He feels a true nostalgia and love for the period. These were the times his parents were still young and he saw everything as beautiful, even the gangsters. These are memories for him that will forever be positive and bright. I don't normally comment on cinematography, but Vittorio Storraro bathes Café Society in brightness and gorgeous sun. It is in line with Allen's vision of era: Bright, hopeful, romantic, and occasionally wistful.
The actors do not perform the material as present-day transplants to the period. They inhabit and feel ingrained in it. Jesse Eisenberg recently played Lex Luthor and Mark Zuckerberg. Kristen Stewart played Bella in the Twilight series. As young lovers Bobby and Vonnie (short for Veronica), they truly have chemistry and we like them. Bobby is a New Yorker who works for his ever-occupied uncle Phil (Carell), a high-powered Hollywood agent forever making deals with studio bigwigs and dropping movie star names. His parties are mere extensions of him. Bobby and Vonnie are going in the right direction, except that Vonnie is involved in an affair with Phil, unbeknownst to Bobby. Phil is also ready to leave his wife for Vonnie, leaving her to decide between the comfortable lifestyle Phil can provide her and the loving, yet possibly poor existence with Bobby. She chooses Phil. Bobby moves back to New York to be with his wacky, loving Jewish family.
It is typical of Woody Allen's writing for him to go in an unexpected direction just as soon as we think we know where everything is going. Bobby returns to New York and works at his gangster brother's nightclub. The brother, Ben (Stoll), is not above murder and extortion to get his way, or even do his sister a favor, as is the case when she calls on him to "talk" to her rude, noisy neighbor. Bobby soon is immersed in the high society of his club. He glad hands gangsters, celebrities, and politicians. He is a smooth operator who then marries a rich divorcee (Lively), also named Veronica, which acts as a constant reminder to him of the girl he lost.
There are further plot complications which I won't divulge or go into. Allen is never afraid to follow his story wherever it may lead, even if it winds up sad, violent, tragic, or comedic. All of these elements are present in Café Society's second half. It is not unexpected that Vonnie would show up in Bobby's life again. In customary Woody fashion, the payoff isn't what we would expect. His Café Society characters love, lose, and love again, but also never let love get in the way of practical thinking and realism. There is also the fact that World War II looms and some of the nightclub guests who boast about being guests in Hitler's Berlin mansion will soon discover a different side to him. We will always have movie stars, gangsters, parties, and nightclubs, but they will no longer have the elegance attached to them that we see in Café Society.
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