Rent Café Society (2016)
3.2 of 5 from 265 ratings
1h 32min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Set in the 1930s, Woody Allen's bittersweet romance 'Café Society' follows Bronx-born Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) to Hollywood, where he falls in love, and back to New York, where he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life. With 'Café Society' Woody Allen conjures up a 1930s world that has passed to tell a deeply romantic tale of dreams that never die.
- Actors:
- Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Sheryl Lee, Todd Weeks, Paul Schackman, Jodi Carlisle, Jeannie Berlin, Ken Stott, Richard Portnow, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Laurel Griggs, Corey Stoll, Tess Frazer, Saul Stein, Gabriel Millman, Craig Walker, Edward James Hyland, Anna Camp
- Directors:
- Woody Allen
- Producers:
- Letty Aronson, Edward Walson, Stephen Tenenbaum
- Narrated By:
- Woody Allen
- Writers:
- Woody Allen
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- 10 Films to Watch if You Like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, A History of Films about Film: Part 1, All the Best: A Celebration of New Year Movies, Films to Watch If You Like..., Holidays Film Collection, Romantic Film Pairings for Valentine's Day, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 26/12/2016
- Run Time:
- 96 minutes
- Languages:
- English Audio Description Dolby Digital 5.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Italian Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing, Italian Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.78:1 / 16:9
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- "On the Red Carpet" Featurette
- Photo Gallery
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Reviews (7) of Café Society
Well Crafted - Café Society review by Richard
In my view even a substandard Woody Allen film is still watchable but this is much better. Not creme de la creme WA but delightfully crafted and shot with some excellent performances. Gentle, amusing and wistful - I'd rate it 3.5 stars and for WA fans definitely worth a watch.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Frocks and cars. - Café Society review by RhysH
It looks good, it sounds good but there is really little more in this rather vacuous movie. It has all the Hollywood clichés; the powerful man on the phone, simpering women, I can't leave my wife, dump the body in concrete, how to succeed without really trying etc. Maybe Woody Allen who is known to dislike the Hollywood system was using cliché as ironic satire.
If you're directing a film and you are now to old to play the lead why not get your leading man to mimic every Woody Allen mannerism, both physical and vocal. Jesse Eisenberg does this really well.
The frocks and the cars are great.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Thinking like Alphaville! - Café Society review by CSF
Alphaville said exactly what I wanted to say but, because I love Woody Allen, I put one more star. Still it is far from being his best film even if worth seeing.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
Café Society review by Adrijan Arsovski - Cinema Paradiso
Woody Allen’s latest work quotes heavily from his earlier projects, thus following a well-established formula which succeeds in most areas, but nevertheless fails in others. It’s nostalgic, mimicking the likes of Midnight in Paris while simultaneously spreading an aura of ‘newness’ that wraps the actors in a cocoon of 'allen-isms' which never quite reach their full potential. At the end, Café Society is neither Allen’s best, nor worst feature till date, but it’s certainly up there with his most memorable films that treat nostalgia like a fuel from which human emotion transmutes in a yearn for better, simpler times.
Café Society starts off by intertwining key Woody Allen ideas like fate, second chance and love into a concoction of events that unravel as fast as the human eye can see. Typical cast for such fast-moving plot would be Jesse Eisenberg, and he certainly doesn’t disappoint. In Café Society, he gets paired with former co-star Kristen Stewart and the two embark on a mysterious journey which should allow them emotional maturity when everything is said and done. Whether or not this is executed seamlessly, remains a question to be answered for another time, with one thing being certain: Jesse feels, walks and talks like your typical Allen antihero, and when a transition between said narration happens – it flows as naturally as every director would want.
Fortunately for us, the audience, the parts Woody Allen ‘lifts’ from himself come to be the better ones. Add the beautiful cinematography by industry master V. Storaro (Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor, Muhammad: The Messenger of God) with his candid style that employs silhouettes and close ups in an innovative manner, and one will finally witness the true power of raw cinema in its purest form.
To aid Bobby (Eisenberg) in his trials and tribulations comes Steve Carell in the form of the eccentric Phil Stern, who more often than not plays like antithesis of the director’s typical hero, in a role that sees Carell taking a more serious approach than what he usually does.
Without spoiling anything, it should be said that the connections Woody Allen brings up between characters are impeccable, and rivaled only by few giants of modern American cinema (Scorsese, Soderbergh). This is true probably because Allen pens his movies by himself – therefore knowing his weaker spots and avoiding them at all costs. And Café Society has many, although truth be told: they don’t distract much from an overall enjoyable period experience per se.
Ultimately, Café Society is well-worth a look or two, if only to see how mature Allen has grown during the past years of his turbulent Hollywood life, in a film that plays much as a reflection upon one’s own choices in life.