Café Society

Café Society is fun, romantic, and surprisingly smart, with a lot more going for it than it might seem. As we get a glimpse into contrasting scenes of New York and Hollywood during a rich and vibrant time in America's history, we begin to see the mentalities of the esteemed and the successful, and begin to realise there is perhaps this side to all of us. Employing a colourful and exciting aesthetic and a rich and genuine cast, Woody Allen achieves an interesting and engaging movie with a lot to think about.

Set in the mid 1930s, Café Society follows Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) as he decides to leave his quaint life in the Bronx behind and move to Hollywood to make a name for himself. Bobby hooks up with his uncle Phil (Steve Carrell), a highly successful film agent, who helps him get a start in the industry. Bobby quickly falls for the charming Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), Phil's surprisingly grounded secretary, however complications force the two apart. Bobby returns to New York to run a night club with his gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll), before his life gets shaken up once again as Vonnie re-enters the picture.

The writing is surprisingly clever, with an easily missed message smartly woven into the changes experienced by the characters. While the end of the movie may ultimately leave audiences wondering if it was nothing more than a comfortable romance flick, the changes experienced by the characters throughout the film suggest otherwise. As Bobby remarks to Vonnie how she has fallen into the glitz and glamour lifestyle she had once loathed, we can't help but realise the same of Bobby himself, who perhaps only became this way through the bitter lessons learnt during his time in Hollywood. Needless to say, there is much to think about in the film's true meaning, and Woody Allen crafts these complicated pictures of society masterfully.

Performances are impressive across the board. Jesse Eisenberg employs a mix of his trademark awkwardness (The Social Network, Zombieland) as well as his surprisingly enjoyable and just as recognisable charismatic character (Now You See Me) to create an enjoyable dynamic to the character of Bobby. Likewise, Kristen Stewart proves she has matured much from her Twilight days to deliver a charming and enjoyably complex performance as Vonnie. Cafe Society features an impressive supporting cast, with particular mentions to Parker Posey who continues to raise the question of why she isn't in more A-List movies.

When it boils down to it, however, this movie isn't perfect. While Woody Allen's narration is ultimately enjoyable, it is perhaps unnecessary in telling a story which easily tells itself, and the constant jumps between the two different sides of America can be a bit jarring at times. This being said, the upbeat jazz soundtrack helps draw the viewer into the rich context of the film, easily supported by the constant name-dropping to 1930s Hollywood celebrities such as Fred Astaire and Joan Crawford. While it is often easy for intended immersion such as this to feel forced, Café Society does it with ease.

If you like complicated romance, you will enjoy this movie. If you like jazz and the 30s, you will enjoy this movie. If you like impressive portrayals of socially unsure and evolving characters, you will definitely enjoy this movie. And if you've ever seen a Woody Allen film and liked it, you will enjoy this movie. 

The Shallows

Over the past half-decade, the lone-actor, often single-location survival film genre has taken off with films like Moon, Buried, 127 Hours, Life of Pi, Gravity, and for me the most memorable; All is Lost. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we arguably haven’t seen a truly great (non-parody) shark film in recent memory. Jaume Collet-Serra’s tries to bring those two concepts together with The Shallows.

Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) is a medical student who’s travelling to a secluded Mexican beach that her late mother had surfed at after finding out that she was pregnant with her. With the help of a local, Carlos (Óscar Jaenada), Nancy reaches the beach, meets two other locals, and cue surfing montage. It begins to get late and the locals head home, but Nancy stays out to catch one last wave. Unfortunately for her, a great white shark catches her first. Her left leg is badly chewed, but she manages to make it to a small reef that’s exposed at low tide and treat her leg as best as possible. But the tide’s coming in, nobody knows she’s there, and the shark is still circling.

Let’s start with the positives. The Shallows displays Collet-Serra’s expert grasp of tension-building. We saw it in Non-Stop and it’s almost as effective here, where every desperate swim Nancy makes comes down to the wire. Whilst this becomes a fairly obvious technique, it never-the-less is able to keep you at least near to the edge of your seat. The film also borrows heavily from that squirmy ‘nerve’ scene in 127 Hours, except Collet-Serra spreads it out across The Shallows. As such, you get plenty of points where the audiovisual bombardment builds a ‘grinding-your-teeth’ level visceral experience. The main body of the film overall is actually pretty well-constructed.

However, as soon as Collet-Serra tries to attach a strong character and story to the action, The Shallows starts to show its weaknesses. I talked about a predicted trend of films that pander to a GoPro/action-cam audience in my review of the pitiful Point Break remake, and this is another of those sorts of films. Not only is a GoPro central to the plot of the film, but Nancy Adams is one of those ‘let’s drop out of university and go live life on a beach because YOLO’ sorts of people that I find particularly annoying. I’m sure others will have the opposite reaction, and I suppose it’s my fault for going to see a film about a sport that I tend to stereotype as full of douche-bags, but it doesn’t do much to draw an outside audience like myself to empathise with the characters. Speaking of stereotypes, the sleepy/drunk/layabout Mexican cliche gets thrown about a surprising amount in The Shallows, particularly in a horrifically comic scene, so take from that what you will.

A lot of the back story is told through an exposition heavy FaceTime call that Nancy makes before entering the water, and in general there’s a lot of annoying showing off with social-media overlays throughout the setup of the film. The story and characters didn’t do anything for me - although Blake Lively’s performance is surprisingly good considering this - and the climax is a little too conceited to really pay off. There are little frustrating moments like a way-too pandering tribute to the Jaws finale as well as a tacked-on epilogue that felt like it was tying up loose ends and tinging the film with a carpe diem message that it would have been stronger without.

The Shallows was filmed in our very own neck of the woods in New South Wales, Australia and around Lord Howe Island. I was surprised to read that a lot of the film was done in a tank because if this film exceeds at one thing it’s making the location feel real. Apart from the odd ridiculous shot and far too much drone footage, this is a really good looking film, especially in its use of space and minimalism. They also make sure that those who go to see The Shallows for Blake Lively in a bikini certainly get a lot of...ermm..content.

The Shallows is a decent popcorn thriller when it sticks to being just that. If you can suffer through the sob-stories, millennial pandering, and the poorly fleshed-out characters, you’ll find a good handful of enjoyable moments, just don’t expect it to be next Jaws.

The Age of Adaline

I'm not sure where to start with this movie, or how exactly I feel about it. Throughout the film I kept trying to look for a deeper meaning or message the film was trying to push, but it just ends up being a very average love story where the supporting cast is much better than the star.

Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) was born in 1908, but due to a freak accident involving snow, freezing water and lightning, she somehow loses the ability to age, not just superficially, but all her organs remain intact as well. On New Years Eve 2014, she meets a handsome man by the name of Ellis (Michiel Huisman) who falls for her. Adaline is torn between her attraction to Ellis and the fact that she knows she will never age as long as they are together.

It takes quite a while for this film's plot to get moving into territory where actual events take place. The majority of the first act is made up of conveniently placed flashbacks describing how Adaline got her bizarro powers, all triggered by a newsreel she watches at the San Francisco Public Library where she works. I feel as though these flashbacks were used up all too quickly at the beginning and instead of using them as reveals throughout the film, we are shown others that seem like they were hastily put together and shoehorned in. These are narrated by Hugh Ross, who also narrated The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, and his inclusion to me seems like director Lee Toland Krieger was somehow trying to elevate this film to something it isn't.

The film also suffers from some perspective issues, as it jumps around a bit and makes the film seem a bit disjointed. The first act focuses on Adaline's past and the second on the present, but the third act shifts to the perspective of a whole different character entirely, Ellis' father William (played surprisingly by Harrison Ford), who had a close relationship with Adaline in the 60s. While this is only a minor problem, it does mess with the structure a bit.

It may come as a shock to some (especially those Gossip Girl fans out there), but Blake Lively can't particularly act. She just kind of chews the scenery and stares blankly at whoever she is sharing the screen with. Luckily the supporting cast does its job. Michiel Huisman is a likeable and charismatic love interest and does well being goofy when he needs to. Ellen Bustyn plays Adaline's daughter and is much more energetic than Lively ever is. Harrison Ford's reveal in the film is almost as shocking as his fake goatee.

The Age of Adaline has many flaws surrounding its shoddy love story, unexplored sci-fi tangents and missed opportunity as an episode of The X-Files set in the 50s. Lively proves that her acting ability is only skin deep and doesn't branch out more than a few sighs and a thousand yard stare.