Review of Café Society

Pretty typical for current-period Woody Allen, Café Society feels rushed and incomplete. It also feels like it could have been one of his best had it went through a couple of revisions. Or not been a Woody Allen movie. Jesse Eisenberg might have been excellent in the lead had he not been saddled with the having to impersonate Allen thing. That, along with some very clunky dialogue, especially in the first half, harmed the movie irreparably for me. Too bad, because there's a lot of great stuff here. The story is very good, and it actually has some nice emotion behind it. Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are wonderful together, and the romance is deeply felt. The basic story is a love triangle with Eisenberg and Steve Carell, his uncle, both falling in love with Stewart, Carell's secretary. The setting is 1930s Hollywood, at least in the first half. The Hollywood setting is a bit of a tease, though, since it leads to little but uninteresting name dropping (which is actually plot relevant, but gets annoying pretty quickly). The second half, which takes place in New York City, is much better, I think. Blake Lively may have given my favorite performance in the film. Stewart is in fine form, though. Really luminous.