Cafe Society (2016)

Not the dose of whimsy I was hoping for.

For the last few weeks, Jennifer and I have been reviewing pandemic-related films on The Strategic Whimsy Experiment. After reviewing The Flu, we decided we needed a break from the horror of viruses spreading throughout the population and wanted to review something fun and whimsical. We searched around for a few minutes and found Cafe Society streaming on Amazon Prime, which we hoped would hit the spot.

But, as the final credits rolled, I couldn’t help but feel let down.

There were some elements of it that I loved, namely the cinematography and the use of color in the film. Every setpiece was lit and colored perfectly to help you differentiate Hollywood from New York, each unique in its own way. These combined to really help set the mood of the film which was often lovely. Unfortunately, the good things about the film couldn’t hold my attention because I was too distracted by the confusing narrative structure.

The story didn’t seem to be following anything in particular, just Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) as he floated through life. There didn’t appear to be too many obstacles, other than him getting dumped by the girl he loved. And he seemed to be able to recover from that jarring event and land on his feet with relative ease.