It’s some kind of year for big name directors making vintage Hollywood pictures. First was the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! and now comes Woody Allen’s Café Society, which is slotted to open the Cannes Film Festival this year, with an Out of Competition screening. (See the full Cannes lineup here.) The first trailer for the film has just dropped, and it looks glamorous, funny, glitzy, and very white (and Jewish). So, basically, it looks exactly like Hollywood in the ’30s.
Aside from the fact that Allen is sometimes at his strongest when traveling back in time, the cast in this thing is so classy it’s outrageous. It’s lead by Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, and also stars Blake Lively, Steve Carrell, Anna Camp, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, and Paul Schneider.
As far as the plot, Eisenberg plays Bobby, a kid who moves to Hollywood, where his uncle, played by Carrell, is a big Hollywood executive. Bobby doesn’t seem to do much other than flirt with girls and act like a very neurotic Woody Allen, which is maybe the crux of all great Woody Allen films. Eisenberg hasn’t had a solid film in a few years, either, and this one looks promising. Good for him!
Watch the trailer for Café Society below. There’s no firm U.S. release date yet.