Café Society review: Woody Allen in old Hollywood

Woody Allen has been delivering cover versions of his own songs for about 25 years now. Each new release can be broken down into constituent phrases that echo similar refrains by the same artist. Café Society, a nicely honed trifle that leaves neither good nor bad aftertaste, plays a little like Radio Days Goes to the Coast.

Our latest Allen stand-in, Jesse Eisenberg, plays Bobby, a nervy New Yorker, part of a noisy Jewish family, who reaches Hollywood with plans to work for his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a powerful agent. The older man is too busy juggling calls from Dick Powell to show Bobby round and puts him in the hands of his assistant, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart).

This being a romantic comedy, the two young people are destined to fall in love. This being a Woody Allen film, the young woman is destined to already be in a relationship with a man twice her age. (You can probably guess who that is.)

Café Society doesn’t actually involve lost fans and abandoned handkerchiefs, but there is a hint of musical comedy to the theatrical business that eventually leads Bobby to the truth. At this point, the film splits into two stories that take a while to re-entangle.

Eisenberg, who was born to be a Woody Allen stand-in, and Stewart, warmer than usual, light up the centre of the film with nervy energy and youthful impatience. Though very much actors of their time, they manage to bend accommodatingly to the overpowering nostalgia that soaks every scene. The melodic jazz and elegant set direction do what they must. But Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography is, in the LA sequences, so extravagantly bathed in cigarette gold that it borders on pastiche.

What really holds back Café Society, however, is the surprising lack of satisfactory one- liners. Beautiful enough, but not quite funny enough.