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 Big Short

It seems like a low-blow to make a devastatingly satirical look at events so closely linked to the Global Financial Crisis when it’s effects are still being felt around the world, but Adam McKay (creator of Anchorman, Step Brothers and The Other Guys) strikes an empathetic balance with The Big Short. 

The year is 2005 and Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a mathematical genius and hedge-fund manager realises that the stability of the U.S housing market is being undermined by high-risk subprime loans. Burry predicts the market has approximately two years before a crash and decides to bet against the housing market with credit default swaps. Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) hears of this and decides to get in on the game and, thanks to a misdialed phone call, alerts another hedge-fund manager, Mark Baum (Steve Carell) to the scheme. A pair of young investors find a booklet of Vennetts and also hope to make some money out of default swaps, enlisting their friend and retired banker Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to help complete the transaction. 

The most crucial part of The Big Short is its focus on two shades of immorality. It pits those that recognise and take advantage of the housing market’s impending doom against the bankers that arrogantly continue to saturate the housing bubble. It doesn’t make it difficult to take sides - the four leads do at least have some empathy for those that will be hit worst by it - but that’s not really the point. It serves as a darkly enjoyable indictment of the financial industry’s greedy tunnel-vision. McKay creates an interesting focus on detail where he breaks the fourth wall with celebrities such as Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez and Margot Robbie explaining - or more precisely, dumbing-down - the financial terms operating within the scenes. Personally, these snippets didn’t particularly help me understand everything at play, but rather served to relax me enough into the story that I was happy to let the jargon go over my head. Of course the experience will be different for different viewers but I feel this was at least partly McKay’s intention. Otherwise he would have used Margot Robbie with a play-school diorama, not Margot Robbie in a bathtub. 

The four leads divide the film into different stories that really only slightly interweave as news of the scheme spreads, and most of the performances are great. The only issue with the way they emerge are the short backstories. They feel tacked-on, at times unnecessary and more crucially, jarringly break the satirical tone. Steve Carell is more-believable in this role than he was in Foxcatcher, and that’s not just because he’s constantly angry or that the comedic material is more to his style but because in that film he was so out of his own skin that I found it impossible not to just see a heavily disguised Steve Carell, whereas here he really makes Mark Baum his own. The same can’t be said about Gosling’s Jared Vennett, whose charismatic veneer can’t outweigh his belligerent lack of empathy. 

Christian Bale’s mildly-autistic performance is book-ended by a drumming heavy-metal admiration and a mathematical temperament. Like most of the leads, he has a refreshing honesty about him - particularly when he discusses with his investors via emails - and thankfully Bale doesn’t lean as heavily on the ‘rain man’ act as I had expected. Brad Pitt’s character is probably the most interesting in the movie, with his unusually subdued performance he portrays a man that has conflicting moral predicaments which become much more evident when the crash occurs. The Big Short undoubtedly takes influence from The Wolf of Wall Street, particularly in its willingness to break the fourth wall, but also in its editing style. McKay is not as heavy on the montages as Scorsese but its sense of hyperactivity is the same. Which is not to say that this is on par with Wolf but it is able to keep an audience’s attention through similar techniques. 

The Big Short proves that McKay can commit to satire with a strong sense of purpose. It catches the apathy of high-finance whilst still hinting at the human-suffering the crash causes, bolstered by some great performances from the leads.You’ll be laughing all the way through and feeling guilty about doing it.