job in the film industry. Through Phil, he meets small-town secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) and falls for her, not realizing she’s already seeing the much older, married Phil on the side. While she angsts over which one of them to pick, Bobby’s career takes off, amid Hollywood glamour that’s much more suggested than seen. Many names are dropped — Ginger Rogers, Howard Hawks, Joel McCrea, Spencer Tracy — but unlike in Allen’s ode to the literary scene of the 1920s, Midnight In Paris, no one attempts to play them onscreen. They’re just lofty ideals, among the only ideals Bobby, Phil, and Vonnie have.

Where Blue Jasmine was Allen's unmistakable riff on A Streetcar Named Desire, Café Society feels like his attempt to set up The Great Gatsby. Like JayGatsby, Bobby enjoys immense personal, social, and professional success while mooning over the one woman he thinks would give it meaning. But narratively, that's about all there is to Café Society, which plays out as a series of largely disconnected vignettes. Allen as narrator has to explain to audiences what Bobby is doing and feeling and why. His sweeping statements about Bobby's discontent don't much match the character's onscreen behavior, as the film follows him through minor things like greeting a string of acquaintances at the ritzy New York nightclub he takes over, or touring Los Angeles with Vonnie, looking at movie stars' houses. And over and over, Allen falls back on lengthy Amelie-style lists of characters, exploring the peccadilloes of broadly drawn glitterati who never become relevant