Re: Café Society reviews
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:39 am
I agree. This one could've been something. The best thing you can say is it's not aggravatingly lazy, merely intermittently irritating. One gets the impression that Woody Allen enjoys coming up with old Hollywood references more than anything else. It's also a gorgeous film, almost distractingly striking in a way the film doesn't entirely support. There's much more energy in the camera movements than the script, which just took me out.
I liked the film more as it went along because A) the pace just picks up and it speeds through life, and B) it became clear it had something to say about (I'm going to be charitable here) how the dreams of our youth serve as gateway to the compromise that will be the rest of our lives. There are incredibly thin parallels with the rest of the film (especially involving Cory Stoll's mobster brother) and it botches an opportunity to dovetail the choices that Steve Carell makes at the end of his life with the choices Jesse Eisenberg makes at the start of his. This is a shame because this is absolutely a film that a filmmaker makes at the end of his life trying to say everything he can about life and love and what it all means. Café Society is the work of a guy who doesn't have anything left to say -- because if he did, this would've been so much better.
I liked the film more as it went along because A) the pace just picks up and it speeds through life, and B) it became clear it had something to say about (I'm going to be charitable here) how the dreams of our youth serve as gateway to the compromise that will be the rest of our lives. There are incredibly thin parallels with the rest of the film (especially involving Cory Stoll's mobster brother) and it botches an opportunity to dovetail the choices that Steve Carell makes at the end of his life with the choices Jesse Eisenberg makes at the start of his. This is a shame because this is absolutely a film that a filmmaker makes at the end of his life trying to say everything he can about life and love and what it all means. Café Society is the work of a guy who doesn't have anything left to say -- because if he did, this would've been so much better.