If like me you are a big fan of Billy Wilder's film The Apartment you might have noticed that the plot line during the first half of Café Society is identical. Jesse Eisenberg is trying to date a woman from work, Kristen Stewart, unaware that she is the girlfriend of his boss - in this case also his uncle. That relationship is also revealed to him using a similar device. I have to say that The Apartment is my favourite film but it's still nice to see the twist which Woody Allen puts on it at the end. Wilder's film has the famous happy ending with Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine getting together. Even for fans like me this seems slightly improbable. Maybe that's part of the appeal. However Allen ends his film just as in the original with a New Year's Eve party (itself reminiscent of Radio Days) And he comments on, as he often does, the sadder, truer reality of life because Eisenberg and Stewart fail to get together, despite regrets. I wonder what Woody Allen actually thinks of The Apartment because there's an excerpt of an interview with Robert Weide on YouTube in which Allen names Some Like It Hot, the other famous Wilder/Lemmon film, as a classic he didn't like. Most if not all of Woody Allen's films are a play on some other classic film, theatrical drama or novel. I recall a quote from Isabella Rossellinii complaining about Allen lifting the plot of Sweet And Lowdown from Fellini's La Strada - as if it was a bad thing. To me, this form of borrowing simply gives an extra depth to his films that sometimes gets overlooked.
Review of Café Society
