Movie Review: "Cafe Society"

"Cafe Society": A.  Woody Allen, writer and director, has done it again, coming up with a 1930's "period piece" combining romance, humor, interesting realistic characters, exquisite costumes, groovy jazz, and a perfect ending.  Having a superb cast, led by Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell, doesn't hurt either.

At the core of Cafe Society is the budding romance of Bobby (Eisenberg) and Veronica (Stewart), who goes by "Vronnie."  They are introduced by Bobby's Uncle Phil (Carell), a big shot agent whose Rolodex contains an A-List of Hollywood stars.  Of course he lives in a Beverly Hills mansion where he and his wife host pool parties frequented by the glitterati. He is incapable of uttering three sentences in a row without name-dropping a handful of celebrities with whom he does business.  When Bobby decides to leave his Bronx home for the west coast, hoping that Uncle Phil will employ him or at least use his connections for landing Bobby a job, Phil keeps him waiting for a week before clearing five minutes of time for the nephew.  Phil's original intent was to give Bobby the brush-off, but he finally relents and offers him menial work as a gopher.  Phil calls in one of his agency's many secretaries, Vronnie, and asks her to show the "kid" around town to familiarize him with LA.

Bobby and Vronnie hit it off immediately, but she doesn't waste much time admitting to Bobby that she already has a beau.  Bobby, no doubt fully cognizant of Vronnie's bare midriff/short skirt attire, is disappointed that this cute girl isn't romantically available, but he's still happy spending time with her platonically.  Bobby is a flirt, not above throwing out a line here and there with unmistakable connotations that if she changes her mind he'll be ready for her.  For example, when Vronnie tells Bobby that her boyfriend travels on business, Bobby responds that if she were his girl he would never leave town without her.

There is a generous helping of the Jewish family Bobby left behind in New York.  It doesn't take long for us to conclude he made the right decision to head west.  His father is an opinionated slug, his mother is a worrywart, his older brother is a gangster, and his sister is an alpha dog who bosses her submissive husband around.  This colorful crew supplies ample opportunity for Allen to intersperse numerous quips, a majority of them with a Jewish bent.  Allen is a master at this technique, which was immensely appreciated by our fellow movie patrons.

There are several surprises throughout, including a major one a third of the way into the story.  About two-thirds of the way in there is a shift in setting and plot, including the introduction of a recently divorced woman (Blake Lively) who is a head-turner also named Veronica.  Her entrance into a night club where Bobby works can only be described as "grand."  It is easy to be distracted by Lively's beauty, so take care not to lose focus on plot development and dialogue when she graces the screen.

Why does Cafe Society deserve a rating of A?  One explanation is that it has no defects.  I'm not sure how one could improve upon the finished product.  The casting is perfect.  A particular strength of Eisenberg is that he has the ability to play a Woody Allen-type character as if he were stepping into his director's body.  He has the body language, the quick wit, the inner suffering, the nervousness and the emotional queasiness that we used to see from Woody in his younger days.  As for Stewart, I was so impressed by her it almost makes me want to check out the Twilight series.  I would, except I don't believe in vampires.  While watching Carell take on the movie mogul character, I did not think of Michael Scott from The Office even once, so a tip of the cap to the multi-dimensional actor. 

I loved hearing the big band music which was popular at the time, particularly the vocals by Kat Edmonson. The settings, the cars, the hair styles, the clothes, even Allen's spoken narrative, all fit perfectly with the '30's era of glamorous film stars.  It was the Golden Age of Hollywood.  As mentioned above, the ending is a definite highlight, ingeniously filmed by Allen with two shots in quick succession which parallel and practically synchronize with each other, almost as if on a split screen.  Such filmmaking design is unique, and could only have been executed by an eminently skilled director.  

In my August 31, 2013 review of Blue Jasmine, to which I also granted a grade of A, I wrote that it was my favorite Woody Allen film of all time. Now I'm not so sure it hasn't been displaced.