Posts Tagged ‘Paul Schneider’

Café Society

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Blake Lively, Ken Stott, Parker Posey, Sheryl Lee, Jeannie Berlin, Stephen Kunken, Sari Lennick, Anna Camp

Opening the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 in typically whimsical fashion, Woody Allen’s Café Society is set between the golden age of Hollywood and the gangster nightclubs of New York.

Auteur director and veteran screenwriter Woody Allen like many of his previous films, decelebritizes his stars and makes Cafe Society a brilliant ensemble piece. At the centre of the witty comedy are two sterling performances by naïve Bronx youngster Bobby wonderfully played by Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and seemingly ordinary yet duplicitous Vonnie, played by Twilight star Kristen Stewart.

Vonnie is the secretary to Bobby’s powerful uncle Marty Dorfman, played by Oscar nominee Steve Carell (Foxcatcher). The smooth talking Marty introduces Bobby to the Hollywood inset as he hires his nephew to become general gopher and invites him to sumptuous brunches at his Hollywood Hills mansion. There Bobby meets chic New York couple, Rad and Steve, played by Parker Posey (Grace of Monaco) and Paul Schneider (Water for Elephants).

It’s really Vonnie that Bobby is in love with, but Vonnie is dating a powerful married man and as a surprise for her boyfriend’s birthday she buys him a framed love letter from Rudolf Valentino. That love letter becomes the main visual key for Café Society as soon a love triangle emerges which places Bobby in an awkward familial situation.

Meanwhile, back in New York, audiences catch a glimpse of Bobbie Dorfman’s Jewish family, his dotting mother superbly played by Jeannie Berlin and his father played by British actor Ken Stott. It’s really Bobbie’s gangster brother Ben who has gone into the nightclub business who is the centre of the Bronx world. Ben is superbly played by an unrecognizable Corey Stoll who was so tremendous in the Netflix’s series House of Cards.

Bobby is crushed when Vonnie calls off their impending romance on a Malibu beach and soon returns to the glamourous world of nightlife, helping his nefarious brother Ben at one of his dazzling nightclubs. As the action of Café Society shifts seamlessly from Los Angeles back to New York, audiences know that they are back on familiar Woody Allen territory.

Part of the New York set is the fabulous Veronica Hays who Bobbie dutifully falls in love with, played by the gorgeous Blake Lively, even though he secretly pines for the more illusive Vonnie.

Wonderfully irreverent to anything vaguely serious, Café Society is a gorgeously shot comedy with gorgeous costumes and suitably fabulous production design, pointing to the fact it’s one of Woody Allen’s most expensive films.

With a witty script and outstanding performances by an ensemble cast especially Eisenberg and Stewart, Café Society is recommended viewing in the vein of similar Allen films like Bullets over Broadway. Allen’s faithful recreation of the Hollywood golden age in Café Society certainly signifies that his European phase is over, which did produce some brilliant social comedies including Matchpoint, Vicky Christina Barcelona and his acclaimed Midnight in Paris.

Café Society is a breezy and funny affair, tinged with delightful moments of guilt mixed with old fashioned nostalgia. A refreshingly stylish visual feast especially in this age of CGI and digitally reliant cinema.

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants is a flamboyant if not old fashioned tale of a man who literally runs away to join the circus. Directed by Francis Lawrence known for his more commercial ventures in Constantine and the Will Smith sci-thriller, I am Legend, Water for Elephants is set during the Great depression in the early 1930s when America was at the height of Prohibition. The films centres on Jacob a young and promising veterinary doctor, and would be graduate of Cornell, whose studies are disrupted by the tragic death of his Polish immigrant parents.

Leaving his childhood home behind Jacob follows the railway line and like many itinerant young men of that decade hops on the nearest train as a free ride towards a brighter future. Except the train is a circus train complete with wild animals, acrobats, a grumpy midget and the translucent star of the circus Marlena, played beautifully by Reese Witherspoon. Jacob shows his useful veterinary skills to Marlena and then to her husband, August a cruel circus master, played with an evil unpredictability by Christoph Waltz.

Robert Pattinson, in between his Twilight saga, left his teeth behind as he plays a simmering Jacob, yet without the full conviction of an actor embracing this characters full complexity and sadness. In the love triangle that ensues between Jacob, Marlena and August, it is Christoph Waltz who really shows his true acting ability as a slightly bi-polar, entirely vicious egocentric circus master who has a penchant for throwing vagrant men off moving trains.

Then again, Waltz did win an Oscar for his brilliant and sinister portrayal of the multilingual ruthless Nazi in Inglourious Basterds; however his danger of becoming the perennial villain is more evident. Both in the disastrous Green Lantern and Water for Elephants, Waltz is cast as the slightly off kilter, sociopathic villain. Reese Witherspoon portrayal of Marlena is fragile and elusive, made infinitely more evocative by the beautiful1930’s costumes and daring scenes with horses and Rosie the elephants, which is film’s main attraction.

Water for Elephants is more about the underlying cruelty to the circus animals that went on unnoticed as the glitzy big top was mesmerizing local towns at the time with acrobatic acts, clowns and lavish spectacle. This cruelty naturally boils over towards the climactic scene of the film, as the circus animals take revenge on their ring leader. Water for Elephants is beautiful to watch, reasonably well acted and entertaining to a point, just short of being an epic.

In the hands of a more inventive director, this film about the circus would have dazzled in the same way that Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge was superbly over the top and outrageously brilliant, but Lawrence’s take on the circus is shot through with a soft focus nostalgic feel – beautiful, but lacking in resonance. As for Rosie the Elephant she steals the show and not the likes of her handler, Jacob, a slightly dull performance by Pattinson, who has a way to go in achieving  credibility and maturity as a successful leading man.