I thought she was dreadful in this film, badly miscast, and rather mousey. What's with those hairy eyebrows? Her line readings were flat and boring and she was totally unbelievable as a femme fatale who could ensnare two men. Just my opinion, but I thought she was the weakest part of the film.
I find it amusing that a few anons on this thread say Kristen Stewart can't act--contrasted by a plethora of the top film critics in the industry insisting that she CAN:
What is it about Stewart on camera? Her relaxation is remarkable, and yet she is alert and precise, reacting to every flicker of emotion, every tonal shift in the other actor, often in ways that are unexpected and yet unmistakably true. It’s as if her years in those ghastly “Twilight” movies were spent in the witness protection program, and now, finally, she can be herself. She is easily the best thing about this movie, just as she was the best thing about “Clouds of Sils Maria” and almost the best thing in “Still Alice.” ~Mick LaSalle http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Caf-Society-is-a-pleasant-and-8401027.php
Eisenberg is solid. But that doesn't stop Stewart from acting circles around him. And the film works best when only we in the audience are privy to Vonnie's dilemma — when the camera fixes on the quiet dance of shame and uncertainty on Stewart's face. It's a surprisingly physical performance; Vonnie's indecision practically consumes her. The young man's inevitable disillusionment is familiar and touching, to be sure, but hers is transfixing. We want to see more of her. ~Bilege Ebiri http://www.villagevoice.com/film/in-caf-society-allen-finds-a-story-worth-telling-but-mostly-tells-another-one-8850458
Carell is excellent at showing Phil's desperation, his neediness and his quiet, hidden empathy, but the real star is Stewart, who is quite on the run these days. She has a near nothing role but turns it into something a little daring, a would-be Girl Friday who sees all the angles and makes the smart play while never losing touch with her inherent goodness. ~Will Leitch https://newrepublic.com/article/135123/cafe-society-go-west-young-neurotic
It’s easy to see why he might have believed that; Stewart is irresistible here. Allen is a legendary director of women, and Stewart’s performance is shockingly good, awards-caliber work. The shallow sullenness she displayed in the “Twilight” films is invisible. Here she’s held in extended close-ups, stunning not just for her beauty but for her presence. ~Colin Covert http://www.startribune.com/with-cafe-society-woody-allen-delivers-lovely-look-at-old-hollywood/387819361/
Everyone's in love with Kristen Stewart. You can't blame them. This weekend, she's the romantic heroine in two indies — Woody Allen's Café Society and Drake Doremus's Equals — and when Stewart's green eyes gaze at the camera, your heart stops. ~Amy Nicholson http://www.mtv.com/news/2904700/behind-green-eyes/
The players do their best with the thin material. Carell seems a little stiff in his supposed love scene with the much younger Stewart. But Stewart nearly steals the movie as she plays “beauty” is such a down-home, understated manner that you can see why so many male members of this family have fallen in love with her. ~Kirk Honeycutt http://honeycuttshollywood.com/cafe-society-review/
Once employed, the young man promptly falls in love at first sight with Phil’s secretary, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart, lit like an angel), unaware that she’s carrying on a secret affair with her boss. Allen, never shy about paying homage to his influences, is partially reworking one of the greatest comedies in Hollywood history, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment. (There’s even a New Year’s Eve scene, in case the plot parallels weren’t plain enough.) If the comparison isn’t flattering (how could it be?), the director enriches his romance by exploiting some preexisting star chemistry: Café Society is the third film to pair Eisenberg and Stewart (after Adventureland and American Ultra), and the two make a perfunctory courtship feel unstudied, even natural—no small feat, given that they’re delivering latter-day Woody dialogue during their map-to-the-stars dates around L.A.
Stewart has the trickier task of making a person out of an object of desire, and though Allen eventually betrays the character’s spirit for the sake of a larger point about fluctuating ideals, the actress still radiates a distinctly down-to-earth charisma. ~A.A. Dowd http://www.avclub.com/review/cafe-society-lends-bittersweet-glow-woody-allens-s-239412
Does Allen fill Vonnie in or is she one more of his mysterious female others? No, he doesn’t; but no, she isn’t. Stewart is alive onscreen. Her Vonnie feels all there, even if we don’t have a full picture of what’s inside. ~David Edelstein http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/movie-review-cafe-society.html
Then again, the cast is pretty wonderful, particularly Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, who conduct a stealthy acting class throughout "Cafe Society." They remind us that even routine banter and sentiments can be made to work with a light touch, a little sincerity and the right faces in close-up.
Stewart and Eisenberg clicked beautifully in the lovely '80s-set romantic fable "Adventureland," and their subsequent film careers have become triumphs of the narrow-range but first-rate actor. All actors have their limitations, but with certain ones, dazzling versatility is neither their goal nor their forte. Eisenberg and Stewart are remarkably similar in their techniques. They hang back. They're great listeners. Their know how to keep a scene moving, and how to pierce even an obvious moment of conflict or revelation or plain old exposition with a little arrow of truth. They have never been more appealingly glamorous than they are in Allen's 1936-set seriocomedy, located in never-never Hollywood and grubbier, vital New York. ~Michael Phillips http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-cafe-society-review-0705-20160721-column.html
The performances, too, shy away from the nutty and the broad, and Carell, a master of the brave face, does a fine job of suggesting the strain behind Uncle Phil’s bonhomie. Better still is Stewart, who, despite the girlish touches in her outfits (headband, white ankle socks with strappy sandals), reveals a woman veiled in ruefulness, and her final moments, in which Vonnie muses on paths both taken and spurned, are a lovely act of suspension, done without a word. ~Anthony Lane http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/11/cafe-society-and-life-animated-reviews
Eisenberg has no trouble supplying the requisite neurotic quotient as the nominal Allen stand-in, but Stewart is good enough to almost make you wish for another version of The Great Gatsby just so she could play Daisy, and Carell layers his initially stock Hollywood big shot in unexpected ways that pay off rewardingly. ~Todd McCarthy http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cafe-society-cannes-review-892693
Review: Stewart shines in Woody Allen’s ‘Café Society’ Vonnie is never far from the frame, and Stewart brings extraordinary balance to a role that could easily be one-note or duplicitous. Her headstrong self-confidence radiates off the screen in a deft performance that deserves to be in the conversation come Oscar time. ~Adam Graham
The film barely plumbs the shallows of the N.Y./L.A. celeb swirl, but it is not without its pleasures. Stewart and Eisenberg make a cute if not magnetic pair, her cool reserve meeting his neurotic bluster (he’s an obvious Allen surrogate), and Carell, Lively, Stoll and Berlin also have moments of genuine wit and sanguine insight. ~Pete Howell
In his best performance since “The Social Network,” Eisenberg is perfectly cast as the neurotic Bobby. But the film truly belongs to Stewart, who brings to Vonnie a haunting luminousness.
A love story drenched in nostalgia, “Café Society” is a film of rare beauty. ~Calvin Wilson
With intermittent romantic sparks struck between Eisenberg and his co-star, a poised and glowing Kristen Stewart, “Café Society” is likely to draw a larger swath of the Allen audience than his last two, “Magic in the Moonlight” and “Irrational Man.”
And BTW, last year, Stewart received lots of prestigious critical acclaim (i.e., New York Film Critics Circle 1st Place award, National Society of Film Critics First Place award, Boston Society of Film Critics 1st Place award, Los Angeles Film Critics Association 2nd Place award) for her performance in Clouds of Sils Maria--which is more prestigious critical praise than any 2015 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee or winner, including Alicia Vikander received.
Stewart also became the first American actress to have ever won a Cesar, France's equivalent to the Oscar, for her stellar performance in CoSM.
As I just commented on another post, the moment I saw her performance in 'Adventureland', I fell in love. Not just her looks of course but for her talent as well. She has "IT" whatever that may be... I can't take my eyes off of her while on screen. Idk how to describe it other than its similar to what Allen did with Keaton. Both are beautiful but not conventionally or traditionally (I don't say that in a bad way.) She has an Aura about her. She can show many emotions at once, which makes her incredibly hard to read and unpredictable in the best way possible. I think Twilight has done what many Sagas do, it boxes in her character even though she's done so much more. Although she's obviously shedding that and becoming a serious Oscar Contender in the process.
I keep going back to it but Adventureland really did hook me. It's an emotional film. Hits on so many levels. I feel like it's far different than one would expect. It surprised me.
My main criticism of her isn't her looks but rather that she plays the same character in which she rarely changes her facial expression or her tone of voice.
It was just an opinion. Though not terribly impressed with Stewart overall, in this case I think she was miscast. We all have our preferences, Kristen Stewart just doesn't happen to be mine. No big deal.
The members here state their opinions. Guess what? The critics are also stating their opinions. You can list 100 reviews of her acting that say she's great, but other people can disagree without you needing to tell them they aren't entitled to their own opinions. Sometimes critics look at popularity and hype because they too are humans with their own preferences and prejudices.
I'll bet there are plenty of actors who have received awards that you think don't deserve them. What matters is that your opinion, critics' opinions, and the opinions of others are all valid.
I find her quite repetitive in her performances and don't see much growth, though she was better in this than in some other things I've seen. I could not stand the whole "Twilight" deal, so I didn't watch all of it with my niece. Her acting in that was bland, blank, and boring--to me. If you loved it, great.
What matters is that your opinion, critics' opinions, and the opinions of others are all valid.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, to insist that all opinions are equally valid is a fallacy. To say that everyone's opinions are valid would imply that no matter how racist, biased, immoral, spiteful, irrational, flawed, bigoted and discriminatory one is, that his opinion should be respected. I've perused IMDb and other forums where I have read several comments made about Stewart and other actors which amount to personal attacks. How can such "opinions" be considered valid? If this was the case than there would be no need for any forum moderators or rules for posting comments if the voicing of any and all opinions are valid. Any public forum would quickly turn chaotic if anonymous posters were allowed to voice their opinions, no matter how incendiary they may be.
I thought she was awful in this. Way too modern looking to recreate the nostalgic 30s look the film had, whereas Jesse looked like he could have been from the 30s, plus he nailed down the old fashioned mannerisms. Blake has a modern look too, but at least she captured an old-timey elegance. They mention Barbara Stanwyck and they should have casted someone with that type of presence. Stewart fit the kind of girl next store look in the beginning, but in the later scenes where she is the society figure, the clothes were wearing her instead of the other way around. That scene where she brags about all the famous people was very cringe-y. The part didn't need to be a model type, but someone who would have that something special to make it believable that two guys were obsessed with her.
She can act, just not very good at it. She's more or less the female Keanu Reeves. She's hot, but there's nothing unique or incredibly interesting about her looks. So why is she an A-list actor? The Twilight movies.
She was very wooden. Hard to believe anyone would leave his wife for her. I know she can look amazing at gala events, at least in the past, but she looked very colourless in this. Also her smoker's voice was quite grating.