Café Society

Plot synopsis:
Set in the 1930's, Hollywood, Phil Stern (Steve Carell) is one of the most successful agents in the business. In the opening scene, he's at a party when he receives an important phone call, believing it to be Ginger Rogers seeking new representation. It's really Phil's sister Rose Dorfman (Jeannie Berlin), telling Phil that her son is going to move over to Los Angeles to find a job working with him.Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) lives with his mother Rose and father Marty (Ken Stott), a jeweler. He has two other siblings; schoolteacher Evelyn (Sari Lennick), who is married to Leonard (Stephen Kunken) with a daughter, and gangster Ben (Corey Stoll). Ben is infamous for murdering numerous people around town with whom he's gotten into dirty business with.Bobby makes his move to Hollywood and tries to meet with Phil at his office, but is told to wait for hours until his secretary says Phil is too busy, and for Bobby to try again on Friday. Bobby goes back, only to find out that Phil took his wife to Mexico.At night, Bobby calls for a woman to be sent to his apartment. The woman, Candy (Anna Camp), is on her first job, and she got Bobby's room number wrong. He chastises her for screwing up and doesn't even want to have sex with her anymore because he is too tired. Bobby hands Candy the money and tells her to leave, but she starts crying. Bobby reluctantly says he'll have sex with her until he gets fed up with the argument and just sends her out the door.Bobby finally gets to sit down and meet with Phil to discuss having a job. Phil agrees, then has another secretary of his, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), take Bobby around town and show him the area. Vonnie drives Bobby around to see the homes of some celebrities, including Joan Crawford's house. Bobby is smitten with Vonnie for her down-to-earth personality as he gets to know her during their time together. When he asks her out on a proper date, she tells him she is seeing a journalist named Doug.Bobby gets promoted to look over scripts. He gets to attend parties with Phil and meets other people in the business. Bobby still tries to get close to Vonnie, despite her relationship.Turns out that "Doug" is really Phil, and he is having an affair with Vonnie behind his wife's back. Although she doesn't want to be the cause of a failed marriage, she is also in love with Phil. Eventually, however, Phil says he can't continue the affair and he calls it quits with Vonnie. She tearfully goes to Bobby's apartment later on for comfort.Bobby and Vonnie begin dating and are genuinely in love, but Phil becomes miserable without Vonnie. He tells Bobby about his mistress without saying who it is. Phil soon learns that Bobby is with Vonnie, which upsets him even more.Phil approaches Vonnie at her other job where she takes people's coats at a venue. He is preparing to tell his wife about their affair, but he asks Vonnie to marry him. He heads off and returns to his office where Bobby finds him. Phil mentions a signed letter and photo from Rudolph Valentino on his desk, which Bobby knows came from Vonnie. He goes to see her at her job and asks her if she will choose him or Phil. Vonnie says she chooses Phil.Bobby returns to New York and begins to run a nightclub with Ben after he and his buddies killed the previous owner and buried him under cement. Bobby is soon swept up in the world of cafe society, getting to know more rich folks and celebrities, as well as politicians and gangsters. Here, Bobby meets the woman that would eventually become his wife, Veronica Hayes (Blake Lively). She is recently divorced after her husband cheated on her with her best friend. Bobby and Veronica date, and she becomes pregnant, leading them to get married at city hall. At one point, he accidentally calls her Vonnie (since Vonnie's full name is also Veronica).Evelyn and Leonard have issues with their neighbor Joe (Brendan Burke), a very nasty individual that constantly causes distress to the couple. Apparently, Joe has threatened to shoot Evelyn's dog, and since she knows he's a security guard, she figures he most likely has a gun that he's ready to use. Fearing for the safety of her and her family, Evelyn asks Ben to have a talk with Joe. Ben and his pals kidnap Joe, shoot him, then bury him under cement as well.Bobby is taken by surprise when Phil and Vonnie, now married, visit New York and attend the nightclub. Bobby and Vonnie agree to go around the city. They spend a day together, eventually kissing on a bridge at the park.After Leonard gets suspicious over what happened to Joe, Ben is eventually caught and tried for murder. The evidence against him, in addition to his other multiple crimes, is enough to get him the death sentence. While in prison, Ben becomes a Born Again Christian, which upsets both of his traditionally Jewish parents. Ben later gets the electric chair, and he is cremated. Bobby spreads his ashes near one of Ben's favorite spots.Following Ben's death, the nightclub gains more patrons for his notoriety. Bobby travels to Los Angeles to consider opening up a club there. He spends time with Vonnie while there, where she mentions that she and Phil will visit New York again. She and Bobby decide it's best if they don't see each other again.Upon his return, Veronica asks Bobby if he cheated on her since she had a dream about it. He says dreams are just dreams, and he kisses her forehead.In the final scene, it's New Year's Eve. Bobby is celebrating at his club while Vonnie and Phil are at a Hollywood party. As the people start counting down to midnight, we see both Bobby and Vonnie in their own locations both looking rather sad and regretful.

Tags: romantic, murder, flashback

Review:
Though "Cafe Society" has a bittersweet, thoughtful quality about it, it's not one of his best.Jesse Eisenberg is the Woody character, Bobby, who moves to LA from the Bronx in the 1930s and drops in on his highly successful agent uncle, Phil Stern (Steve Carrell).
Cafe Society is a little on the slow side - the acting is good, there are a few jokes, it's historically accurate (I'm always looking for films about old Hollywood to goof up like Barton Fink), and the photography and fashions are beautiful.
In many ways Café Society could be said to restate almost all of the key ideas and themes of Woody Allen's films in one way or another: life, chance, fate, love and guilt.
Carell and Eisenberg become really close out of nowhere, both of the couples' relationships are sped up by Woody Allen's narration (which doesn't really add anything to this film), and this movie is only 90 minutes long, so I feel as if they could have definitely spent more time with all of these relationships, instead of just having Woody tell us what was happening.
It's another Woody Allen movie with the same romances and love triangles centered around white people who like jazz with a pretty inconclusive and unsatisfying ending..
We soon meet all of the rest of Bobby's family, including a gangster brother and a sister who is married to an intellectual, who offers such wisdom as the quotation, "Live every day like it's your last and some day you'll be right." With brilliant cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and great performances from Eisenberg, Carell and Stewart, the film is one of Allen's most enjoyable in years.
Eisenberg and Stewart play the two young lovers, Bobby and Vonnie, who meet in Hollywood, where Bobby moved from New York.Bobby's uncle, Phil, is a big shot in the movie industry and Bobby is looking for a job.
Woody Allen often is an interesting and insightful directors, whose films regardless of how they come off overall look great, have great soundtracks and he often knows how to get strong performances out of actors, at his best his writing was a fine mix of the hilarious, the poignantly dramatic and the thought-provoking.'Café Society' is not one of his best films.
Was very pleasantly surprised by Kristen Stewart, she can not do much for me but this is proof that with good material she can be good, the role could easily have been hardly one at all but Stewart does make the role more interesting than he deserved to be.Jesse Eisenberg didn't work for me, he just plays a younger Woody Allen alter ego and it just comes off as a bad impersonation without being either funny or charming, instead it's annoying and the neuroses are overdone.
The story does suffer from too much crammed in and sketchily developed characters (making the central relationships not quite as convincing as they ought to have been), and while there was no problem with a more morose at the end the ending just felt too inconclusive and gave the sense that Allen was indecisive as to how to finish the film.In conclusion, looks beautiful and has some enjoyable things but somewhat unsatisfying.
Jesse Eisenberg is the latest in a string of stand-ins for the Woody Allen part and he's as bad as Jason Biggs in "Anything Else." Besides weak acting skills he lacks the charisma to carry a film.
At eighty years young, Woody Allen delivers his forty-sixth (yup, you read that right) feature film with Café Society; a bourbon basked narrative feature showcasing the wonderfully vibrant jazz era of the 1930's, where the magic of the movies is very much alive; nightclubs are bustling with life, traces of the gangster underworld are closer than ever and love is a feeling as whimsical as ever in a parallel tale spanning from Hollywood to New York City.After forty-six films, you would think, with a director and writer as aged as most of our grandparents, the dialogue and writer of such an iconic filmmaker would lose his touch, but Allen proves his newest feature is as fresh, fun and fantastic as could be.
Self-aware and self-absorbed as ever, the auteur extraordinaire showcases some of his most subtle and subdued screenplay to date, focusing mostly on performance from his very young cast and indulging in the beauty of a lively era within the very social elite of Hollywood and New York City.Like any good Allen film, the story follows a very unsure and adventurous young man by the name of Bobby Dorfman, played perfectly by the nerdy and always lovable Jesse Eisenberg.
Taken by her beauty at first site, Bobby and Vonnie begin experiencing the city of angels through the eyes of glamour and glitz, essentially discrediting the city and its inhabitants as a whole, and wishing for a life that is half Hollywood, and half urban paradise.As the relationship between Vonnie and Bobby intensifies, despite Vonnie having a secretive relationship with another married man, the two share some of the most memorable meet-cute dates seen this year on screen.The heart of Café Society relies heavily on the relationship and chemistry between Eisenberg and Stewart, who, luckily for audiences, have played love interests twice before in Adventureland and American Ultra.
Café Society is a fun, summerlicious filled romantic comedy with perfect instances of quirky dialogue and narrative that uses the beautiful jazz music as a mosaic of forbidden love and second chances.While Café Society may not be the huge commercial success of other summer blockbuster films, the film is easily one of my favourite films of the year, delivering a true cinematically entrancing experience, much like Allen's Midnight In Paris.
The character Ben Dorfman played by Corey Stoll is added to put some action humor in the film as a gangster thug of the 1930's but it just didn't add anything or help here.The love interest between Bobby and Vonnie is played out similar to Alvy Singer and Annie Hall played by Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in the 1977 Academy Award winning film "Annie Hall".
I myself am a sucker for a movie that gives a take on old school Hollywood and Woody Allen did a beautiful job with Cafe Society.The cinematography on this one did a great job of capturing the feel of 1930s California and New York city.
A knock out combination of lights setting and music to bring out the mood.And the jazz numbers that lace this flick did just that for setting that beautiful tone Jesse Eisenberg started off a little too much Woody Allen at first (one particular scene in the beginning that acts like a hilarious sketch routine, where Jesse's character Bobby buys a hooker).
You will want to be in the New York and Hollywood portrayed in the film.In the end, I'd recommend skipping this and just rewatching one of Woody's greats like Midnight in Paris..
But, and this pains me to say, this movie was terrible, just awful: way too long, insipid script, a story line that went nowhere except in circles, Jesse Eisenberg doing a very bad Allen imitation, and the "romance" between him and Kristen Stewart had about as much electricity as sitting in a ballpark during a rain deluge and watching the infield turn to mud.
Just like all Woody Allen movies from the last 10 years, Café Society is loaded with atmosphere.
Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell headline as the couples in question, each delivering superb subtle character deliveries that firmly establish the Bronx and old Hollywood atmosphere.
Here, Allen tackles a topic near and dear to him: a relationship rom-com, set party within Hollywood, and within the Jazz Age. From the first shots, we stand amazed at the picture-perfect camera work, I mean the movie is just eye-candy from start to finish (with much of the West Coast scenes brought in a beautiful orange glow).
Woody Allen's latest film CAFE SOCIETY is another lightweight effort by the Director, who feels that he has to put out a new second-rate movie every year.
However, while in Hollywood he falls for Vonnie, his uncle's secretary, (she's having an affair with her boss), which means the path of true love never runs smooth and all that....Vonnie is Kristen Stewart, fast becoming my favourite young actress, and the uncle is Steve Carrell and they are both superb in a superb ensemble that also includes Jeannie Berlin, (you may be shocked to find Elaine May's daughter is now an old lady), Parker Posey, Ken Stott and Blake Lively.
Nothing is especially dark here in the story of Bobby Dorfman (Eisenberg, who seems like he was specially created from Woody Allen Chia-Pet seeds in a lab to be the Woody-esque lead in a Woody Allen movie), who comes to Hollywood in the 'Golden' age of the 30's to get work from his uncle Phil (Carrell), and meets his secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart, making it the third time this screen couple's together so their chemistry is perfect).It becomes kind of a love triangle of course - the perennial story of the "Friend Zone" done in Woody's approach as Vonnie is really with Phil and Bobby being in love with Vonnie and her being love with him AND Phil and when will uncle and nephew know what the other has (maybe with a touch of The Apartment too, for good measure, though I may just be reading into it that way) - and set in the backdrop of 30's period Hollywood and 30's period New York; in the sub-plot, as much as it is (which is kind of, well, light) Corey Stoll is Eisenberg's brother, a gangster who rises to power as a tough guy and gets one of those nightclubs that we always think of from the movies, especially in the 1930's and in other period settings.
But this isn't so much a Midnight in Paris scenario where the famous figures appearing is part of the running gag (there are plenty of names dropped, more to set us in here and give raging movie geeks something to go 'yeah, ooh, ahh'), nor is it quite Bullets Over Broadway, where the gangster setting really added to the story.There are some things about Stoll's character that do come into play in the film, especially in the third act, but he's relegated to the "B" plot line which is a shame since Stoll is so wonderful in the role and does as much as he can with it (noticeable wig and all).
The movie really belongs to Eisenberg and Stewart and Carrell (and later Blake Lively has a small role that works enough as it can), and it is what it is: a story of love being confused around all the sides, and then when a decision is made and third act kicks into gear the 'what if' of it all between Bobby and Vonnie becomes more of the focus.
It follows a young man named Bobby (Jessie Eisenberg) as he moves to Hollywood to get a job from his uncle (Steve Carell) who is a Hollywood producer and falls in love with Veronica "Vonnie" (Kristen Stewart) as he slowly gets more connections and rises to more importance.
However here (and in some other of Allen's later-period movies) things just stumble along as though hoping to find meaning or resolution, and when they don't, the film sort of gives up with a shrug.The cinematography, set design, costumes, art direction and other visual aspects are all top-notch.
The core of the story is the love that people feel for each other and what it makes them do, yet it gets lost in all the noise.Bottom line: I don't think Woody Allen knew what this movie was supposed to say.
Looks & Sounds Great - Top-Notch Acting Too. In the new film written, directed, and narrated by Woody Allen, actor Jesse Eisenberg gets the Allen role and at times, early in the film, appears to be channeling his klutz persona.
I've always really liked Woody Allen's stuff, and call me crazy, I really think this is uo there with some of his best stuff.I wasn't expecting to love this film, but it was just great.
Everything goes nicely until he discovers that he's in a complicated love triangle."Cafe Society" seems quite different from the Woody Allen films that I watched.
Bronx born Bobby(Jesse Eisenberg)travels to Hollywood to visit his uncle(Steve Carell)and along the way he falls in love with a young girl(Kristen Stewart)yet still Bobby is swept up in the vibrant world of night life of clubs, drinks, society, and beautiful women and the people of elegant and high class society life(also good turns are given from Blake Lively and Parker Posey).
Complications arise when a young man working as errand boy for his Hollywood agent uncle unknowingly falls in love with his uncle's mistress in this nostalgic 1930s-set Woody Allen film.
Thankfully Café Society is not the case, despite Allen's recent tendency to deliver either tepid or downright very disappointing films (yes, I mean the embarrassing mess that was From Rome With Love).Café Society is a harmless fun film set in 1930's where a young man from New York City moves to Los Angeles to work with his Hollywood talent agent uncle, falling in love with his assistant along the way.
Starring Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, and Kristen Stewart, Cafe Society follows a young neurotic New Yorker as he travels to Hollywood to find himself and work for his uncle's movie studio.
Woody Allen is a well-known director, winner of Oscar for the film Annie Hall, plus Café Society is well below that movie for example, at least it's a fun movie, the photography is good, the costumes are very good, the script is good , As is usually the works of Allen, the cast is very good, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart that each film can erase a little your passage through the weak Twilight saga, Steve Carell who in recent years began to do great performances, and participates in Allen is good, the dialogues are good, some are funny, the soundtrack is cool, and the rhythm is good, Cafe Society is an OK film, even though it is less than Some of Allen's films.
In this film he revisits all of those at once.Along the otherwise standard love/adultery story, we get all sorts of obvious or subtle references to many of Woody's past films, and that's what's great about this little film:-The movie begins in Movieland, and moves seamlessly to new york, back home, because the Allen surrogate on-screen doesn't fit in Los Angeles.
"Life is a comedy written by a sadistic comedy writer." Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) No one has ever accused Woody Allen of being sadistic, but as he warms over themes and tropes from his other comedies for Café Society, he is beginning to be downright cynical about his work if not a bit so about humanity.It's Depression-era Woodman, jazz in the background, partly in LA and NYC, wardrobes and backgrounds bathed in a glow that replicates my nostalgic impression of an era past and some obscure references for those younger than I.
She has more glamour than most of the stars appearing on Woody's screen (exception: Blake Lively as Bobby's wife is every bit a star).I love Allen's nostalgic pieces, most notably the wistfully romantic Midnight in Paris, whose imaginative conceit of visiting the '20's at Midnight is magical, as opposed to the expected glamour of the sets and costumes of Café Society.
Indeed, in love with two persons at the same time, as is the fate that befalls Vonnie once she meets the new L.A. émigré called Bobby who is the nephew of her boss.Kristen Stewart- Vonnie- has come a long way since the days when she was stuck playing a vampire or something in an earlier film.
Bobby meanwhile falls in love with her but finding his position in Hollywood untenable moves back to New York to help run his mobster brother run a nightclub.With it's slim familiar story line and near lifeless performances out of Eisenberg and Stewart, Cafe Society depends heavily on its look to to give this film a pulse.
A young New Yorker (Jesse Eisenberg) comes to Hollywood and starts working for his uncle (Steve Carell) who is a big and successful film producer.
"Cafe Society," by contrast, is a mess, with subplots that are either of no interest or seem to be better ideas for the main plot, a thin main plot that is groan-worthy at times, actors who don't seem to know what they're supposed to do, main characters who are not sympathetic, an unnecessary narrator whose voice pops up now and then for no apparent reason and comes across as a control freak with vocal cord damage, etc.It would not surprise me if Mr. Allen actually thinks this is a great movie, which makes it even sadder.
Café Society follows a young man who, upon moving to Hollywood, meets a young woman whom he falls in love with, and the drama that ensues from that as Woody Allen narrates the whole thing.
I look forward to every new film Woody Allen puts out, I just hope he goes in a less painfully awkward direction after realizing that Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg as a lead love interest in a glamorous setting is laughable..
Even when the movies themselves aren't great, I rarely feel like I've wasted my time watching them."Cafe Society" falls squarely into this category of Allen films for me.
Café Society is written & directed by Woody Allen and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Blake Lively, Ken Scott and Jeannie Berlin.In the 1930s, a young Bronx native moves to Hollywood, where he falls in love with the secretary of his powerful uncle, an agent to the stars.