Café Society

Cafe Society aims to be light and frothy, but feels more like a stale cream puff. It looks enticing, but lacks anything fresh or substantial. [Full review in Japanese]

It's uneven, it's empty, and it's redundant.

It's as if Allen has decided that near enough is good enough. He's famous for making a movie a year; after so many great films, that may now be too often.

Unlike his earlier work or more recent gems like Blue Jasmine and Midnight in Paris, Caf Society is mostly froth with little substance. But that's not to say it isn't an entertaining diversion, after all, we all want fairy floss sometimes.

When the credits roll, you feel that yes, you've had an enjoyable time and watched something very pretty, but are also aware that in under a week you won't be able to remember a single character name.

As if to compensate for the fact the basic material is, frankly, thin, Allen and his technical team have made certain that visually this is one of his most satisfying films.

Café Society, written and directed by Woody Allen, proposes a nostalgic trip to the United States of the 30s embedded in jazz and classic cinema. However, the story will be much more than that, it will also remind us of the uniqueness of the first love.

Perhaps “Café Society” strolls at its own pace and perhaps Woody Allen is in cruise control with his latter films. Still I had a lot of fun with this one.

Café Society, more than any Allen film in recent memory, feels like a jumbled hodgepodge of ideas.

Its all right, an average dramedy with a touch of old world (and Jewish) idiosyncrasy. ... The ending doesn't work. ... Here fantasy hits a brickwall.