MOVIE REVIEW
“Cafe Society”
Grade: C
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell. Directed by Woody Allen.
Rated PG-13 for some violence, a drug reference, suggestive material and smoking. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 36 minutes.
Bottom line: Some of it is pleasant, but mostly it feels a little tired
Maybe Woody Allen waited too long to make “Cafe Society”; it seems, weirdly, to be an uninspired remake of itself. Set in the 1930s, as a young man from the Bronx tries to get a toehold in Hollywood, it’s meant to be a comedic yet poignant story of love, ambition and show business. Instead, it’s a pale lamppost in an increasingly fading career.
Now in his 80s, Allen still makes a movie every year, but the effort shows here. The magic of “Midnight in Paris” or the character work of “Blue Jasmine” seem a lifetime away. So many Allen trademarks are present: the nostalgic setting and music, the neurotic young male lead (Jesse Eisenberg, nervously muttering), the romantic triangle involving a young woman (Kristen Stewart, in hair ribbons and bobby socks) and a much older man (Steve Carell). Even Allen himself is here, as a voice-over narrator dropping in bits of unnecessary information (the grand movie houses of the past, we’re told, weren’t too expensive) and vaguely literary exposition. (“And then one evening, in walked the past.”)
None of this is terrible, and some of it is very pleasant: Stewart’s endearingly sweet performance, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s butter-yellow light, designer Santo Loquasto’s Art Deco sets, Carell’s fast-talking Old Hollywood name-dropping. And its road-not-taken final moments hint at something genuinely touching — the quiet shadow of a romance that might have been. But it just mostly feels a little tired, a bit lazy — an expensive sketch of a movie, or a song we’ve already heard.
