AB FAB

AB FAB

            Most fans of public television know those dreadful British situation comedies, where the canned laughter in reaction to colossally unfunny lines and situations sounds tinny and desperate, and the characters throw pat lines at each other, pause for the laughs, and mug outrageously.  (They may represent retaliation for the American Revolution).  One comedy that didn’t appear on PBS, but ran on a cable channel, differed drastically from the usual tepid, mechanical fare, a wild show called Absolutely Fabulous, which starred Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley as a couple of completely irresponsible, decadent, hedonistic drunks, somehow surviving in the vague fields of public relations and trendy magazines, always hunting for money and men.

            The new movie, cleverly titled Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, pretty much follows the patterns of the TV show, including the presence of a couple of the supporting actors, venturing further into its essential outrageousness and never really pretending to anything like authenticity.  Its makeshift plot involves the efforts of Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Lumley), feeling their age, who hope to reinvigorate their failed careers by representing the model Kate Moss, who plays herself.  They end up knocking the model into the Thames, landing in deep trouble, absconding to the South of France, and continuing a series of often raunchy misadventures. 

            In addition to Moss, several other famous people appear as themselves, including Lulu, Joan Collins, and in a very funny little moment with Lumley, Jon Hamm. They enhance the appeal of a silly but entertaining film overflowing with improbable situations, bright colors, and weird characters.  If the London fashion scene resembles the one in the movie, that world is heavily populated with completely and variously obnoxious people.   Aside from piling one excessive comic scene on top of others, the movie really consists mostly of wild farce and exaggerated gags, or in other words, amounts to an extension of the old TV show.

Cafe Society

Review of Café Society

          His fans will no doubt rejoice at the annual Woody Allen movie, this one called Café Society, and not terribly different from his last dozen or two dozen mediocre efforts.  (One exception: Blue Jasmine, a very unusual work from Allen, and a very good movie).  Set in the 1930s and narrated by the writer-director, the film shows the career of a young man from Brooklyn, Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), who goes to Hollywood to make a life for himself; he hopes that his uncle, Phil Stern (Steve Carell), a successful movie agent, will help.

          Phil deputizes one of his secretaries, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), to show his nephew around town, the Hollywood of a now romantic past.  After a number of pleasant excursions, the two young people reach a point of mutual affection, but as it turns out, Vonnie is involved in an affair with Uncle Phil.  That discovery drives Bobby back to New York, where he launches a successful career working for his gangster brother as the maître d’ in his posh night club.

          The movie’s occasionally comic moments revolve around the amusing Dorfman family, which bears some resemblance to the family in one of Allen’s better films, Radio Days.  Its emotional elements remain steadfastly on the surface, with the writer-director telling the audience pretty much what the two main characters feel about each other.  Since neither Jesse Eisenberg nor Kristen Stewart convey anything resembling genuine passion, they appear merely to be acting out Allen’s hardly credible lines.  Eisenberg pretty much owns the tiresome role of the naïve young guy, which he’s played far too often, and though Woody Allen, Jesse Eisenberg, and Steve Carell constantly proclaim her beauty, Stewart remains a quite ordinary and quite insipid personality.

          The movie looks carefully polished and authentic, with the cars and clothes and, especially, all the wonderful popular music of its time.  Oddly, nobody refers to the Great Depression that after all, defined the decade.  Café Society belongs with most of Woody Allen’s recent—actually over a couple of decades—works: it’s trivial, shallow, and utterly empty of anything resembling real emotion.