Two looks at the new Woody Allen movie with Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell and Jesse Eisenberg. And you, are you for or against the film?
In favor, by Manuel Yanez Murillo
From its energetic opening to its restful final stretch, ‘Café Society’ traces a suggestive study on the effervescence and sedimentation of the enchantment of love. At its nostalgic start, the film portrays 1930s Hollywood as an ocean of warm lights and glowing faces. A brilliance, in digital format, that will dazzle the most romantic cinephiles. Nevertheless, the connoisseur of Allen’s universe will find glory in the second half of the film, set in bohemian New York and touched by a moving cocktail of melancholy and tenderness. Updating the emotional odyssey of Michael Caine’s character in ‘Hannah and her sisters’ (1986), ‘Café Society’ puts into images the sweet calm of a resigned spirit: Jesse Eisenberg, whose face is twinned with that of Kristen Stewart, her unattainable beloved, in an unforgettable chained cast.
Against, by Sergi Sanchez
There was a time when, for Woody Allen, nostalgia was like magic, a way to escape reality. In this art of escape, which crosses the umbilical cord that unites ‘Días de radio’ (1987) with ‘Midnight in Paris’ (2011), there was a beautiful, vital energy that turned the past into a habitable space, memory sentimental of a genius passed through the sieve of self-irony. By contrast, the 1930s of ‘Café Society’ seem embalmed in Vittorio Storaro’s pristine digital photography, the characters are animated mannequins, the love triangle is made and unmade by the demands of a script that despises all empathy, and Jesse Eisenberg’s interpretation is, as usual, too rigid. To ‘Cafe Society’ it lacks the warmth and charisma of that classic cinema it tries to invoke, as much as Kristen Stewart, with her casual glamour, intermittently raises the bar.
DATA SHEET
Address: Woody Allen Distribution: Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll Country: USA Year: 2016 Release date: 08-26-2016 Gender: Comedy Screenplay: Woody Allen Duration: 96min
Synopsis:New York in the 1930s. As problems grow with his rowdy parents, his gangster brother and the family jewelry store, Bobby Dorfman feels it’s time for a change of scenery. So he decides to leave and try his fortune in Hollywood, where his uncle Phil, a powerful agent, hires him as an errand boy. In Hollywood he soon falls in love, but the girl in question has a boyfriend. Thus begins a friendship, until one day the girl knocks on her door and tells her that her boyfriend has broken up with her. Suddenly, Bobby’s life takes a very romantic turn.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
