Café Society review: “A witty, very funny, gloriously constructed, visual feast…”

Cafe Society review: Woody Allen’s film for 2016 is a visual delight that captivates from the off.

Woody Allen’s Café Society has the honour of opening this year’s Cannes Festival. Here’s our Cafe Society review in full.

Woody Allen gets the privilege of opening this year’s Cannes Film Festival, an honour which has fallen to his feet twice before with Hollywood Ending in 2002, and the superb Midnight In Paris in 2011. Allen returns to Hollywood for his 2016 entry Café Society, which also screens out-of-competition; his fourteenth film to do so.

Jesse Eisenberg leads the cast as Bobby, a native New Yorker who, after growing tired of his father’s jewelry trade in the Big Apple, heads to Hollywood in the 1930s to bag a job with his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), one of Hollywood’s top agents. There, he meets the alluring Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), Phil’s very down-to-Earth office secretary, who seemingly shies away from the starry Hollywood scene. After finally getting a position with his uncle, essentially as his errand boy, Bobby starts to fall for Vonnie as she takes him under her wing, showing him the delights of a sun-soaked city which shines bright with glitz and glamour, though more so through the eyes of the attractive young woman.

Last year’s Woody Allen movie, Irrational Man, delighted when it landed on our shores back in October, and while we were in the minority by heaping praise on the Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone starrer, we couldn’t help by admire the veteran director going off in a different tangent to his previous work. With Café Society he changes direction again and delivers a sun-soaked, truly beautiful piece of work. First and foremost, the film is stunning to look at, with 1930s Hollywood being painted with a very beige-tinted, sun-coated brush, Vittorio Storaro’s wonderful cinematography colour-matching the equally magnificent set and costume design. There are some wonderful camera moves with the veteran director of photography and Allen fully embracing the digital format and using it to their advantage with well framed, long takes.

Essentially a romantic comedy, which is where Allen is usually at his best, Café Society shines brightest when its two leads are on-screen together. Eisenberg and Stewart, who appear in their third film together following the superb Adventureland and the distinctly average American Ultra from last year, are both supremely excellent, particularly Stewart, who delights and engrosses for every single moment that she is on-screen. Carell too, in a surprisingly expanded part, expertly nails the role of the super-agent from yesteryear; another example of his acting chops that go much further than his solid comedic turns. There’s also Corey Stoll, solid as Ben, Bobby’s gangster brother who has a penchant for having people shot in the head and covered in concrete, as well as Blake Lively, Parker Posey, and Kelly Rohrbach; all of whom are absolutely fine in their respective roles. Allen also appears off camera with a feature wide narration, and The Sopranos alumni Tony Sirico also pops up in a very brief, but very funny scene. Also look out for the superb Anna Camp, one of the ladies who welcomes Bobby to L.A., who appears in one of the film’s best written and executed scenes early on – classic Allen.

Café Society will no doubt split critics, much like most of his work from the last decade or so, but we found the film to be a witty, very funny, gloriously constructed, visual feast, and a worthy addition to Allen’s glowing cannon.

Café Society review, Cannes Film Festival 2016.

Café Society will be released in the USA on July 16th, 2016.

Catch all of our Cannes ’16 coverage here