Café Society | Film review - Woody Allen’s bittersweet period comedy

Cafe Society Kristen Stewart Jesse Eisenberg

(Image credit: Sabrina Lantos)

Woody Allen’s bittersweet period comedy Café Society finds Jessie Eisenberg’s callow New Yorker Bobby travelling to 1930s Los Angeles, hoping to blag a job with his Hollywood agent uncle (Steve Carell) but encountering heartache after he falls in love with his uncle’s secretary and secret mistress, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Café Society is very much minor key Allen, but Eisenberg’s neurotic hero proves a good stand in for the director and the swanky set design is ravishing. But the best thing about the movie is Stewart, who provides touches of real feeling to Allen’s contrived plot.

Certificate 12. Runtime 92 mins. Director Woody Allen

Café Society is available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Download courtesy of Warner Bors. Home Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl4X6pFfmTI

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.