At 80, Woody Allen – still amazingly and reliably averaging one film per year – has certainly earned the right to occasionally drift, glitteringly, through the romantic halls of nostalgia. Several of his most recent films have, in some capacity, either directly addressed the romance of the past, or, by extension, the Old World glory of faraway European cities. Allen has developed, perhaps welcomely, a tendency to stroll quietly and wistfully through the joys and regrets of memory. This was addressed the most aggressively in 2011’s Midnight in Paris, a film about a modern-day writer who loses himself in the streets of the City of Lights, only to find himself transported back in time to a wild epoch of literary giants, wherein we was allowed to interact with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, et al. The film ultimately was an examination of the powers – and dangers – of nostalgia. It can be fun to wallow in past, but we must live in the present.
With Café Society, Allen seems to be allowing himself – maybe indulgently – his own unguarded and un-policed stroll through a better time. Here Allen recreates a glittering, golden 1937 or 1938 Hollywood – a city he has always been ambivalent about – as a near-sepia wonderland of romance and possibility. The movie business was stern and forthright, but there was plenty room for dreaming and for love. That the love doesn’t necessarily lead to a Hollywood ending is, perhaps, a quiet sort of masterstroke.
Amazon Studios/Lionsgate
Jesse Eisenberg plays an ambitious young Turk named Bobby who has just moved from New York to find a new life for himself in Hollywood working for his rich, all-business, ultra-exec uncle (Steve Carell). At first, Bobby is lonely and unsuccessful and lovelorn – there is an early sequence wherein he bickers with a tardy prostitute that is hilarious – but he eventually finds both work and livelihood in the company of Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), a pretty secretary who seems sophisticated and cosmopolitan to Bobby’s dazzled eyes. Vonnie, curiously enough, was also the name of Julie Roberts’ character in Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You. It is also the name of Blake Lively’s character in this film.
Vonnie is having an affair with an older man, and communicates this openly to Bobby, but Bobby, being wide-eyed and scrupulous, decides to lay on the charm nonetheless. For those of you who may be tired of watching Eisenberg play a series of cold, jittery neurotics, you’ll be pleased to learn that he can convincingly play naïve and sweet. Stewart, meanwhile, displays more energy here than she has ever previously. Stewart has only grown more versatile as she continues to work, and gives what is perhaps her best performance to date here.
Romantic complications arise that will eventually separate our young lovers, and have them go their separate ways. Bobby eventually finds himself back in New York where he weds a new bride, but cannot forget his one true love.
Amazon Studios/Lionsgate
Many romance films, even great ones, tend to be about grand gestures and love’s large, decisive moments. The fall, the whirlwind, the staling, the break. There aren’t many filmmakers mature enough to capture the dull and eternal ache of longing. Allen constructs his romance like an Old Hollywood prestige picture, equating lost love with a longing for a time when Hollywood was, perhaps, as pure as it ever was. In that capacity, Café Society plays like a less cynical and more generous flipside to The Coen Bros.’ Hail, Caesar! from earlier this year.
There was a time when such stories evoked by Café Society were the majority of Hollywood’s biggest hits, and people paid good money to see torrid tales of romantic heartbreak and personal struggle. In 1937, the age of special effects and mega-blockbusters was yet to befall the biz. It was a time just before enormous technicolor monstrosities like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were to change the landscape forever. Yes, the general evocation of purity is a fantasy – in reality, ego and money still walked tall and irresponsibly across the landscape – but witnessing this version of Hollywood is still a rather nice dream to indulge.
Top Image: Amazon Studios/Lionsgate
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
