CAFE SOCIETY. (2016) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY WOODY ALLEN. STARRING JESSE EISENBERG, STEVE CARELL, KRISTEN STEWART, BLAKE LIVELY, PARKER POSEY, JEANNIE BERLIN, KEN STOTT AND WOODY ALLEN AS THE NARRATOR.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This bittersweet romantic comedy-drama is veteran film-maker Woody Allen's most recent project. Well, it looks like the old guy still has all his marbles, anyway, you'll be glad to know, even if some meanie critics do think he's past his best.
Put it like this, his days of making movies like ANNIE HALL and HANNAH AND HER SISTERS may be behind him but CAFE SOCIETY is still a dashed good effort and it made big bucks at the box office. It even has a 70% rating on movie review site ROTTEN TOMATOES, which is usually the sign of a decent flick.
It's kind of like the glittering movie version of a famous novel like THE GREAT GATSBY or something. Let's have a look at the plot and see for ourselves, shall we, movie peeps?
Set in America in the 1930s, the film spans several years in the life of curly-headed Jewish boy Bobby Dorfman, played by Jesse Eisenberg whom you might recognise from such films as THE SQUID AND THE WHALE and THE SOCIAL NETWORK. He leaves the family nest in the Bronx to see if his Uncle Phil, a successful Hollywood agent-to-the-stars played by Steve Carell, can throw any work his way.
While in Hollywood, Bobby falls head-over-heels in love with his uncle's secretary Vonnie, played by Kristen Stewart from the TWILIGHT saga. I always find her so mopey and wishy-washy and rather meh myself, I'm afraid, and in all honesty I can't say that she sparkles here. I don't know what Bobby sees in her but there's no accounting for taste, haha.
The pair get closer and closer as Vonnie shows Bobby the sights of movie star-infested Hollywood in the 'Thirties. Bobby only has eyes for Vonnie, however, which is rather tricky as she has a married boyfriend who's been vacillating for months now over whether to leave his wife of twenty-five years for his doe-eyed secretary. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you find out who this married louse is...
The action takes our mop-topped Jewish laddie from Hollywood back to his native and much more beloved New York again, where he works in his gangster brother's high society nightclub and accidentally becomes a huge success as he tries to forget Little Miss Secretary and her girlish guile.
She turns up again in New York though, like the proverbial bad penny, and Bobby doesn't have to dig too deep into his heart to find out that he still has feelings for the little home-wrecker...
I love all the name-dropping of movie stars' names in the film. These Hollywood types banter about Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy and other famous types as if they meet 'em for lunch every other day, which of course they probably do, the lucky sods.
The film certainly has all the glitter, glitz and glamour you'd expect from a movie about Hollywood's golden era, when the studio was the king and stars lived in mansions in Beverly Hills with swimming pools and tennis courts and huge garages for their fleets of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces and what-have-you. Sigh. Those really, truly were the days, the golden halcyon days that will never come again.
I liked Bobby's encounter with the rookie prostitute, who was only doing it because her acting career had gone down the tubes, and I thought it was a shame that she never turned up in the film again. There could have been some potential for some more laughs or drama there.
I adored the storyline about Bobby's gangster brother Ben who solved all his problems (like his sister's obnoxious neighbour) by giving 'em a nice snug-fitting concrete overcoat. If only we regular Joes could deal with our troubles like that! I can think of a few nasty little niggles I'd like to solve that way. The water bill and a few pesky exes would be first in that hole, haha. I've only added that haha so you don't think I'm serious about whackin' no-one, see? Which I ain't, of course.
Oh, and speaking of whackin' people Mafia-style, Paulie Walnuts Gaultieri from HBO mob drama THE SOPRANOS turns up here unexpectedly as a chef in a restaurant where Bobby and Vonnie eat dinner. Paulie and his mate Sylvio Dante, who ran the Bada-Bing strip club, were Tony's faithful henchmen and a great double act too.
I preferred Paulie's scenes with Christopher Moltisanti, Tony's nephew, though. To my dying day, I'll never forget the time they got lost in the woods in winter searching for the Russian guy who cared so little for the bitter biting cold that he washed his balls in ice water, God bless his hardy Russian constitution.
Anyway, my own odd little habit of taking away bread rolls with me from restaurants if I haven't been able to finish eating 'em all reminds my friends and family of that episode of THE SOPRANOS where Paulie's elderly Ma is doing the exact same thing in a restaurant with Paulie's full co-operation and approval.
Personally, I don't know why I do it. Damn things are always stale and rock-hard by the time you get 'em home. I think I only do it because I figure I'm getting my money's worth that way...!
Anyway, CAFE SOCIETY is available to own now on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital Download courtesy of WARNER BROS HOME ENTERTAINMENT. Fans of 'Thirties Hollywood and the movie stars of that glamorous era will positively lap it up. Don't get left behind, that's all I'm saying...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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