This is typical Woody Allen: light and lighthearted, with just a touch of bitterness, a smile now and then.....that's all you get from the movie, enjoyable but totally forgettable; as many of Allen's movies, it leaves you with nothing. Café Society, with Storaro's help, looks very slick, every image is studied and polished with obsessive care, almost manneristic, and it falls often times into affectation. What keeps up the movie are the decent performances by the strong cast, and the as usually good dialogues. As a last remark: I found rather annoying having a narrator as voice over all along the movie, which by the way was rather unnecessary.

I watched this more out of curiosity more than anything else and found it surprisingly good. I was surprised since Woody Allen was 80-years-old when this came out in 2016. It's rare to do such fine work in any artistic endeavor at such an advanced age. Of course the opportunity to direct Kristen Stewart was no doubt an incentive. It could be that Woody wrote this years ago and only decided to turn it into a movie when he got the very talented Vittorio Storaro to do the cinematography. The co-incidence of uncle and nephew (unbeknownst to either one of them) falling in love with the same woman Vonnie (Stewart) was handled skillfully, especially the sequence of events that led to first Phil Stern (Steve Carell) and then Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg ) discovering their surprising rival. In addition to this being a beautiful film with a lot of pleasing 1930's era atmosphere it is also very cleanly directed by the old master. There is no clutter, virtually everything in the plot is necessary and I was pleased with the realistic treatment of love sadly lost, and then the possibility of it being rekindled as an illicit affair, and then… Well, I won't say. See the movie. It's definitely worth watching. One more thing: Kristen Stewart at 26 was as pretty as pretty can be. --Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review book, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"

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source: Café Society

If I could rate it lower than one I would Woody Allen has been saying the something with different cast since Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989 enough already. how much happiness is enough happiness, nothing is ever good enough plot. same old plot, different actors. was poorly made. He has made Match point all over again only this time with a really mediocre group of actors, specially Kristen Stewart. she is uncomfortable and empty in her own skin. Vonnie is suppose to be this down to earth but beautiful goddess whom is unaware of her loveliness, Kristen Stewart fails miserably in doing both. I have been disappointed in Mr. Allen for a while since Match Point to be honest but this was the final straw, he needs to find a new thing to talk about. i think he has over done this plot and needs to move on.

This is typical Woody Allen: light and lighthearted, with just a touch of bitterness, a smile now and then.....that's all you get from the movie, enjoyable but totally forgettable; as many of Allen's movies, it leaves you with nothing. Café Society, with Storaro's help, looks very slick, every image is studied and polished with obsessive care, almost manneristic, and it falls often times into affectation. What keeps up the movie are the decent performances by the strong cast, and the as usually good dialogues. As a last remark: I found rather annoying having a narrator as voice over all along the movie, which by the way was rather unnecessary.

I've always had a difficult relationship with Woody Allen. His movies are low key, usually romantic stories and I like that. I like his style as well, it's laid back and colorful even though it's also full of conflict and weird situations. The last years of his career he has perfected his cinematography and sense of atmosphere. Just like all Woody Allen movies from the last 10 years, Café Society is loaded with atmosphere. That's the best thing about it. The cinematography and atmosphere alone makes this very watchable. And yet I either love or hate most of Allen's movies. This one I love and hate at the same time, so it's somewhere in between. The difference in this love/hate relationship for me is in the casting. When he succeeds in casting the right actors in the right roles and when the actors succeed in showing some chemistry on the screen his movies are some of the greatest ever made. But more often then not he fails because it's romantic and character based, that's the difference between an utter failure and a classic. I don't care what ages the characters have but I need to be able to believe that they are in love. Obviously. And yet Allen continuously chooses to cast actors that aren't very good to begin with. Actors that simply don't come off as natural. He used to act in his own movies and he is a terrible and annoying actor and an annoying character. Now Jesse Eisenberg has taken his place and he's not that much better. Eisenberg is simply not a very good actor. He always does the same nervous character in every movie, and I don't even believe his performance. He really should be doing something else. Kristen Stewart, I still believe she can be a decent actress when cast in the right role but she hasn't found it yet. Her eyes always look lazy/bored/annoyed with the world, I'm not sure. But in any case, she does not have any chemistry with either Eisenberg or Steve Carell. Steve Carrell is decent enough as he usually is but no chemistry. So in short this is a review of Café Society and Woody Allen as a whole: Atmosphere dripping from the screen and a decent story but terrible casting makes, or in this case breaks the experience.