Poor casting of lead characters

Yep, zero chemistry.

Eisenberg & Stewart are such unappealing, horrible actors that they ruined the movie for me. I tried to imagine which of today's young actors would have made this thing work and could only come up with two: Jennifer Lawrence (who should be in every movie!)and Derek Hough (the dashing, good-looking, good-humored fellow who has been wasted for a decade on TV's "Dancing with the Stars"). This couple has the charisma and natural chemistry that "Café Society" so desperately needs. Are you listening, Woody?

And yet the top film critics in the industry said otherwise:

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/




The standout, though, is Stewart. Her Vonnie is a complicated character who transforms from down-to-earth girl to jewelry-drenched arriviste, but Stewart somehow embodies the inconsistency and makes us believe her. ~Rafer Guzman http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/caf%C3%A9-society-review-jesse-eisenberg-kristen-stewart-shine-in-woody-allen-s-latest-1.12045195





Bobby’s first love, a Veronica known as Vonnie ( Kristen Stewart), is Phil’s adoring and more or less adored secretary; thus those complications, and a performance by Ms. Stewart—a career best in my book—that makes neurotic indecision alluring. ~Joe Morgenstern http://www.wsj.com/articles/cafe-society-review-depression-era-delights-1468520476?tesla=y





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/





But it’s Stewart who is the most memorable here, playing an emotionally conflicted woman torn between two men and two lives; she is both seduced and repulsed by the siren song of Hollywood. ~Cary Darling http://www.dfw.com/2016/07/20/1121645/allens-bittersweet-cafe-society.html





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





And in Café Society, buoyed by the nuanced performances of Stewart and Eisenberg, the 80-year-old Allen creates a ravishing romance shot through with humor and heartbreak. ~Peter Travers http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/cafe-society-20160713




Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart shine in Woody Allen's lightweight 'Cafe Society' ~Joe Dziemianowicz http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/jesse-eisenberg-kristen-stewart-ace-woody-allen-cafe-society-article-1.2708405




'Cafe Society' review: Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg enliven otherwise dull nostalgia

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





Stewart, with her sensual combination of wised-up and innocent, does much to tamp down Eisenberg’s more frenetic actor’s tics. ~Peter Rainer http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2016/0715/Cafe-Society-is-a-mixed-bag-for-all-its-smoothness





Fresh-faced, buoyant and unaffected, Vonnie is very much a change of pace for Stewart, but one she handles with her usual skill and aplomb. ~Kenneth Turan http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-cafe-society-review-20160711-snap-story.html




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

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/movies/2016/07/28/movie-review-stewart-shines-woody-allens-cafe-society/87692754/





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

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2016/07/28/reel-brief-caf-society-vaxxed-phantom-boy-keanu-and-high-rise.html




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

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/woody-allen-s-caf-society-is-a-bittersweet-treat/article_bc2373b8-65c9-5a7e-8f19-201f2f87b965.html




Kristen Stewart’s performance in the role, which blends gravity and lightness, glamour and its opposite, is certainly the best part of “Café Society,” but it also exposes just how thin and tired the rest of the movie is. ~A.O. Scott http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/movies/cafe-society-review-woody-allen.html?_r=0




Its only memorable quality is a performance from Stewart so present it almost throws the movie off-balance, suggesting more complexity to her character than seems to have been on the page. ~Alison Willmore https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/theres-a-reason-everyones-talking-about-woody-allen-and-not?utm_term=.crGLNrn84#.pkvKNZAJO




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.”

Stewart makes you touch the reality of that line. She sheds some of her own halting mannerisms to play a woman of warmth who, with a twinkle, holds her ardor close to the vest, and the mood of quiet confidence fits the actress beautifully. ~Owen Gleiberman http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/cafe-society-review-kristen-stewart-woody-allen-cannes-1201771214/





As for Stewart, she’s without doubt an alluring screen presence; you can’t take your eyes off of her. ~Ann Hornaday https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/cafe-society-movie-review-upper-middle-late-period-woody-allen/2016/07/21/136d148a-3eb5-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html

Did you ever consider the lack of on screen "romantic chemistry" was intentional? The characters were both desperate and lonely when they met. Perhaps the filmmaker wanted to put a crimp on the romance angle.

He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.

Agree. They were both dull, especially Stewart. I don't get her appeal at all. And how could he pine over Stewart when he's married to Blake Lively?

Their chemistry was undeniable in Cafe Society:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GoiI50um20