Review of Café Society (2016) by Dennis L — 09 Jul 2017

Beautiful 1930's period piece film neatly directed by Woody Allen.

I watched this more out of curiosity more than anything else and found it surprisingly good. I was surprised since Woody Allen was 80-years-old when this came out in 2016. It's rare to do such fine work in any artistic endeavor at such an advanced age. Of course the opportunity to direct Kristen Stewart was no doubt an incentive. It could be that Woody wrote this years ago and only decided to turn it into a movie when he got the very talented Vittorio Storaro to do the cinematography.

BEWARE SPOILERS.

The co-incidence of uncle and nephew (unbeknownst to either one of them) falling in love with the same woman Vonnie (Stewart) was handled skillfully, especially the sequence of events that led to first Phil Stern (Steve Carell) and then Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg ) discovering their surprising rival.

In addition to this being a beautiful film with a lot of pleasing 1930's era atmosphere it is also very cleanly directed by the old master. There is no clutter, virtually everything in the plot is necessary and I was pleased with the realistic treatment of love sadly lost, and then the possibility of it being rekindled as an illicit affair, and then... Well, I won't say. See the movie. It's definitely worth watching.

One more thing: Kristen Stewart at 26 was as pretty as pretty can be.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review book, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote".