- #CAFE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY BLAKE LIVELY FRENCH MOVIE#
- #CAFE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY BLAKE LIVELY FRENCH PLUS#
What’s different for an Allen movie is the mobility of the camerawork, which opens up space and gives a sense of the way that enclosed worlds of superficial glamour can both dazzle and oppress their inhabitants. Together with Santo Loquasto’s richly realized production design, Storaro provides a range of colour schemes for different settings from the expected 30s sepia for the Bronx, to the vibrant aquatic blues of the opening pool scene. Where some of Allen’s more sumptuous recent films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona have erred on the side of picture-postcard kitsch, here he works for the first time with star DoP Vittorio Storaro to enlivening effect.
Here he opts for a more expansive narrative scale, spinning his story out over a year and zig-zagging between different sets of characters and sub-plots that build up teasingly.Īnother ace is the film’s visual grace. In recent years, Allen has often seemed stifled by the vignette-style concision of his anecdotes (as in last year’s philosophical trifle Irrational Man). In some ways, there’s little here that is truly surprising, although what could have been deeply mechanical in the development of Bobby’s path actually works out with a ring of classical ironic logic. There he reinvents himself as the front-of-house charmer at the chic Manhattan nightclub run by his brother Ben (Corey Stoll), a gangster who’s built his empire on sudden death (“If you ask nicely, people will listen,” he says, dumping a business associate into a cement pit). But an irony that might strike some as just too darn neat stands in the way of their happiness, and Bobby flies back home. She’s a down-to-earth soul, unimpressed by Hollywood pretensions, and Bobby falls instantly for her.
looking for new avenues and, after a false start, is given a mailroom job by his uncle Phil, who also introduces him to his secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Rose’s son Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) soon arrives in L.A. and New York, where we meet the Dorfmans, the working-class Jewish family of Phil’s sister Rose (Jeannie Berlin). Allen’s own voice-over narrates a constant zigzag between L.A. poolside party at the house of powerful, name-dropping Hollywood agent Phil Stern (Steve Carell).
In some ways, there’s little here that is truly surprising, although what could have been deeply mechanical in the development of Bobby’s path actually works out with a ring of classical ironic logicĮssentially a tale of individuals losing their illusions as they find their way to worldly success, Café Society opens at an L.A.
#CAFE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY BLAKE LIVELY FRENCH PLUS#
Sumptuous visual execution plus a top-rate ensemble cast should place this in the high altitudes of Allen’s recent commercial successes, especially in France, where it opens simultaneously with its launch of the Cannes official selection. But the glitter of the 1930s American beau monde rubs off handsomely in Café Society, a bittersweet comedy of manners that sees Allen pushing the boat out stylistically and in narrative ambition, even as he treads familiar ground. Visiting a romanticised past has sometimes served Woody Allen well ( The Purple Rose of Cairo, Midnight in Paris), sometimes rather badly (the recent Magic in the Moonlight).
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