CAFE SOCIETY

The benign title references Woody Allen’s forty-seventh film; bereft of new material, Allen is comfortable cocooned in aged memories; wallowing in the vapid company of Hollywood’s elite or New York’s gangster milieu,  predictability ensues; it’s 1936 and Allen’s doppelganger, in the guise of Jesse Eisenberg (mimics to perfection Allen’s inimitable cadence and posture), as “Bobby Dorfman”, leaves his stereotypical Jewish home to find his forte, working for his agent-uncle “Phil Dorfman” (solid Steve Carell) in the land of glamourous facades, freneticism and gobs of glitz.

Bobby instantaneously succumbs to the charms of his uncle’s secretary “Vonnie” (Kristen Stewart’s subtle and profound performance lends credibility to a “lovely to look at” but flimsy scenario); she and Eisenberg have a sufficient modicum of chemistry to pique the viewers attention. “The course of true love never does run smooth” and Bobby’s second romantic interest is serendipitously, “Veronica” number 2 (Blake Lively,  stuck in the ageless world of “Adaline”, bland, beautiful, boring), but one’s first love is never excised from one’s heart.

Nostalgia permeates every scene: smoking without impunity, drinking ambitiously, consciously awaiting the next gratuitous party, life’s immutable, haunting decisions; “Café Society” is a delicious canapé, flashback to what once was, now,  for better or worse “gone with the wind’.

THREE STARS!!!

Peneflix