13. Cafe Society

13. CAFÉ SOCIETY

Director: Woody Allen

Release date: September 1, 2016

It seems that in Jesse Eisenberg, prolific writer-director Woody Allen has found the perfect avatar, a vessel through which his trademark bumbling protagonist can be reimagined into youth. Indeed, Eisenberg is a perfect fit for Allen’s witty, verbose style of comedy and he shines in this return to form by the legendary filmmaker.

As much a satire on old Hollywood as it is a love letter, Café Society sees Eisenberg – who previously appeared in Allen’s To Rome with Love – as impressionable Bobby Dorfman, the youngest of a Jewish family living in New York City in the 1930s. Bored of working with his jeweller father, Bobby sets off to Hollywood to work for his uncle Phil (Steve Carrell), a powerful talent agent that brushes shoulders with bona fide screen legends. Phil asks his secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) to show him around the town and the two form an attraction.

In the past six years or so, Allen seems to have gotten his groove back, with the relatively recent Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine amongst his better offerings since his purple patch in the latter half of the 1970s. His latest film is aided by Eisenberg and Stewart’s established screen chemistry, with the two previously playing lovers in Adventureland (2009) and American Ultra (2015). But all the cast is excellent, with Carrell at his best and a radiant Blake Lively adding glamour to proceedings. A funny side plot features Corey Stoll as Bobby’s gangster brother.

Café Society leaves you with a sense of melancholy, perhaps reflective of Allen’s longing for this distant golden era of cinematic history.