MESSY, BEAUTIFUL NOSTALGIA IN CAFE SOCIETY..Thirdrailblog@wordpress.com

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MESSY, BEAUTIFUL NOSTALGIA IN CAFE SOCIETY

JULY 31, 2016 BRANDON WAGNER LEAVE A COMMENT

By now, Woody Allen is what he is. His output has moved long past the days of Annie Hall and Manhattan and settles now on pleasant enjoyment in its best moments and formless boredom in its worst. However, his embattlements aside (I will not address his controversies in this review. It is not necessary to engage withCafe Society and I am not willing to wield the sword), there is still no presence quite like Woody Allen. For that reason alone, it is worth engaging with him when we are given the opportunity, to see if he is making folly or crafting a rare sort of flesh-and-blood engagement with a with a set of ideas.

While Cafe Society may not be a full blown example of the latter, it certainly strays far from folly, and ends up a charming, admirable, and nostalgic bit of romantic ephemera.

This time, the role Woody Allen would have played in the ‘70s is Bobby Dorfmann (Jesse Eisenberg). He’s a young, nebbish, awkward romantic of a man who leaves Manhattan for the glitz and glamour of 30s Hollywood. He’s there with the hopes that he’ll be helped out by his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a powerful Hollywood executive. What luck, he actually does. Phil gives Bobby a job as an odd-job man that makes him a number of powerful connections.

It also connects him with Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), a beautiful young secretary who Bobby instantly falls in love with. There’s one problem. That being that Vonnie has a boyfriend who’s a little closer to Bobby than he thinks.

Also, his family is pretty neurotic and his brother (Corey Stoll) is a gangster. A bunch of people drop references to people in old Hollywood.

I know that seems out of nowhere, but to be fair, that’s kind of the way the film does it. While the individual moving cogs of Cafe Society are all charming and fun, there’s a sense that these are welded together without much care. The main story (Vonnie and Bobby) is remarkably well-done, and it wouldn’t necessarily work without the other pieces.

But that doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t have a lot of weird turns that feel out of place in the moment. As charming as Corey Stoll is, the New York Jewish Gangster stuff seems to come from a different movie until it becomes super important all of the sudden. I guess maybe that’s reflective of the perspective of the main character, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily any less confusing to see on screen.

It means the film feels very messy, which isn’t necessarily what it wants. It wants to be loose, drifting through these people’s lives, but it feels like it’s constantly catching up with itself. That means when it needs to hit its big ideas and big points, there’s not enough of a basis in the actual action of the film. It’s the kind of film where I know what it’s doing, but I’m not necessarily sure it’s actually doing it.

None of this necessarily drags down my enjoyment of the film, mind you. This is all head stuff up above this paragraph. This is a film that works hugely on a heart level for me and so much of it is based on the cast and the main love story.

Jesse Eisenberg isn’t necessarily someone I need to defend, except maybe in the light of Batman v Superman. After all, the man is an Oscar-nominated actor. But I do still appreciate the hell out of what he does and specifically what he does here. There’s a fantasy aspect to someone this awkward being a ladies man and a widely beloved success, but Eisenberg actually manages to give him a certain charm that works in this film.

But I do need to defend Kristen Stewart, which I’ve done before.Cafe Society gives me the room to mount it with the most cohesion though.

To put it simply, Kristen Stewart is a damn fine actress. She has a absolute control over what it is she does and she wears her emotions in shades and subtleties more than anyone else. Stewart does not disappear into roles, rather she envelops them. She knows what she’s doing, that’s what I always see in her. She knows how to take the histories of her characters into herself and turn them into her own. Her worst roles are roles that would defeat any actress. Roles in tired films with characterization tossed off with nary a thought to what she’s given.

When Stewart is given something to sink her teeth into, like with the films of Oliver Assayas or opposite Eisenberg, she soars. Woody Allen gives her plenty in Cafe Society. Vonnie is a trapped girl, given two paths of life. The easy one that so many in her position have taken and the hard one that she might love. Stewart embodies her house divided against itself and makes you understand her decision and care what happens to her as a result of it. It’s honestly remarkable and I loved watching her.

It’s also because she has remarkable chemistry with Eisenberg. The two feel remarkably natural together on screen, like they might be a real couple. They play off each other like old pros and they seem to create a greater whole no matter what’s happening around them.

The rest of the cast is great, of course. Carrell proves he’s got legitimately strong dramatic chops and Stoll is ruthlessly charismatic no matter what he’s doing. Every supporting actor is also a delight.

The story being told is wonderful and this is craft in a way we haven’t seen from Woody Allen in a while. Much is thanks to Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer who bathes Hollywood in a golden glow, a gentle beautiful nostalgia. It’s a film that feels wonderful to look at and becomes a wonderful experience through that.

Cafe Society isn’t everything it should be. But it’s so easy to admire what it is. A gorgeous step back into an old love, a dream of what might have been. Some great people bringing us a snapshot of a very long moment.

Grade: B+

Ryan Vs Cinema…Cafe Society review

Review: “Café Society” (2016)

Ryan / 3 hours ago

Picture: Amazon Studios

Every year I check in with my favourite New York neurotic to see what underrated treat he’s been occupying his time on. One cannot deny the fact that we are in the era of “Mild Woody”, but even his lesser endeavors are generally triumphant. The most vocal criticism towards Café Society, his latest ode to 1930s Hollywood, is that it’s more of the same. That is, for the most part, true. Over the fifty years he’s occupied our screens as a filmmaker, Allen has crafted a thoroughly clear image of himself as an artist. Those opposed to him, his image, and his style will surely reject Café Society as another one of his “mediocre outings”. But I’ve seen all forty-seven of his features, read his four books, and listened to every recording of his stand-up I could get my hands on. When it comes to Woody Allen, nothing is more appealing than “more of the same”.
That said, Allen fans will certainly notices some slight distinguishing alterations tossed into the mix. This is the first time the prolific filmmaker has used digital, and it shows markings of a more contemporary take on the period piece genre. Between some flashy transitions and an image that at all times seems to synthetically glow, it’s not overly reliant on identifying itself through means of classical styling. Some might oppose to this anachronistic technique, but Allen has never been one to focus on historical accuracy. His period pieces, which are plentiful in number, always feature characters who speak as if they were from another era or world. This is illustrated in farcical proportions in the “early, funny ones”, such as Love and Death or Sleeper. But the same can be said for his calmer endeavors, like The Purple Rose of Cairo and Midnight in Paris, among countless others. His characters’ way of speech and nervous mannerisms seem entirely of a more modern setting. Allen juxtaposes this with period settings to accentuate ideas of isolation and alienation. His filmography is a lengthy list of stories about people who belong in different times, which is, essentially, also his life story.
These days, the responsibility for a leading man in Allen’s features seems to consist of performing the best possible impression of the filmmaker himself. That’s not Allen’s doing; his approach gives free reign for his performers to develop their characters as they see fit. Yet film after film, every male protagonist seems to rehash what the auteur popularized in his hey-day: the twitchy, stuttering shtick. The sole exception in recent memory is Joaquin Phoenix in Irrational Man, who reached into a darker and more sinister territory, replacing cuteness with a brooding sense of near-nihilism. In retrospect, it was a truly commendable performance. But in Café Society, Jesse Eisenberg returns to the familiar and comforting role of the Woody Allen impersonation. He excels at that, and while he is naturally similar to his model, most of own individual characteristics fail to shine through. I suppose Allen has found a way to immortalize himself. He can live on through the actors he casts without even having to act. I’m not protesting; I find it strangely endearing.
Much more original and powerful is what Internet Queen ™ Kristen Stewart delivers as the object of Eisenberg’s unwavering affection. Her face is engulfed with alternating pangs of despondency and supressed joy as she tries to untangle her way through a tightly and complexly woven love triangle. Allen has always demonstrated a much keener and more insightful side when plunging into the stories of his female characters. This is no exception. Stewart’s voice and slightest mannerisms provide the movie with emotional honesty. The film’s success at being both joyful and heartbreaking all comes back to what Stewart can accomplish with the slightest glance or blink of her eyes. She has now deserved her crown.
Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s shot compositions infuse the movie with an original aesthetic, crafting images never as gorgeous or as memorable as the Queensboro Bridge shot from Mahattan, but with a similar sense of wonder. Close-ups of Stewart’s face, bathed in auburn-coloured lighting. Long shots of lavish Hollywood gatherings. Storaro’s ability to deliver tenderness and vibrancy with his camera provides personality in moments where the movie is lacking.
Even though it’s disguised as a moderately breezy and romantic production for Allen, it manages to pack the same existential punch that we’ve seen throughout the ages. Discussions on philosophy are constant, alongside bickering on Yiddish culture, and 1930s movie talk. The difference between this and the likes of Magic in the Moonlight is the fact that Café Society’s story seems to be in touch with the same cynical ideas of meaningless it openly contemplates. Woody Allen meditates on the same unanswerable questions that perplexed the Russian literary masters. If Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream, and Irrational Man are morality dramas in line with Dostoevsky’sCrime and Punishment, movies like Hannah and Her Sisters and Café Society would be tributes to Chekhov. They’re family dramas about human dissatisfaction that drip of despair. Café Society in particular is about how our temptations for the superficial distract and disillusion us from what truly matters. In the hands of another filmmaker, it might feel preachy. But Allen has always possessed a unique quality to make his commentary seem genuine. I suppose it’s modesty.

https://ryanvscinema.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/review-cafe-society-

Grafitti reviews PS: “Personal Shopper is a film with the power to beguile and send you into a rage.”

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PERSONAL SHOPPER (2016) MOVIE REVIEW: I BOO DEAD PEOPLE

Kristen Stewart plays the titular Personal Shopper, who happens to also be able to communicate with ghosts. Personal Shopper is a film with the power to beguile and send you into a rage.

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Whenever a Cannes Film Festival audience boos a film, it’s most definitely worth your time. Is the audience up its own pretentious ass or is the film actually horrendous? In almost every instance, a film that elicits that kind of reaction, cannot be missed. For the first time that I’ve ever seen a film that was booed at Cannes I agreed with our beret wearing betters. Personal Shopper made this reviewer hate it immediately. After an hour, discussion with friends and two spiced mojitos I was ready to hear reason. Writer/Director Olivier Assayas’ follow-up to Clouds of Sils Maria, with star and muse Kristen Stewart may be a diamond, instead of a pig wrapped in silk.

Maureen (Stewart) is a personal shopper for a globetrotting model Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten). Maureen is also a medium. When her twin brother passes away from a genetic deformity that they share, she uses their shared awareness of the spiritual realm to attempt to make contact. When her attempted contacts graze darker spirits it sends her into reality altering delirium.

Stewart’s Maureen already stands apart. Her life is one of service and negotiation with her employer, bouncing around Paris armed with a supermodel’s terms of ‘adornment.’ Assayas does a great job of shrouding the audience in Maureen’s isolation and melancholy. Underneath the noise, Maureen is vulnerable. Once she dips her toe into the other realm, she’s different. Assayas attempts to ground the spiritual realm with the darkness in Maureen’s life. When she’s contacted by a stranger by text, she becomes enraptured by the virtual companion and in her mind, but never really yours as the audience, she’s vulnerable to emotional exploit. The composition and construction of scenes surrounding Maureen enacting her fantasy and her interactions with the stranger are exquisitely ambivalent. Stewart must carry the entire film, bridging the gap between seemingly distant tones and characters. She plays Maureen with a bitter irritability in the work setting, despite her talent. Stewart feels despondent and lost because of her brother’s passing – she’s lost; his void has created a void in her life. Assayas and Stewart explore the burden of the shadows with authentic insecurity.

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Now writing this review, what’s stranger is this may actually be captivating. Wait, there was what felt like 72 hours, in the middle of the film that played out through a text message conversation. Once you start criticising each text for grammatical ‘abbrev’ choices; you know you’re in far too deep. There are moments as Maureen is being manipulated by this anonymous stranger that Assayas locks you in as the voyeur; fulfilling his disturbed fantasy. At the time it felt deviant; but perhaps reflecting; it makes sense for the character’s yearning to be as beautiful and alluring as her employer.

No, what has this movie done to me?!

With Personal Shopper you don’t ask “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” Instead it’s “what came first the fury or the adoration?” The conundrum remains frustratingly unanswered.

Score: Who knows.

Blake Howard – follow Blake on Twitter here: @blakeisbatman

Directed by: Olivier Assayas

Written by: Olivier Assayas

Starring: Kristen Stewart … Maureen

Lars Eidinger … Ingo

Sigrid Bouaziz … Lara Anders

Danielsen Lie … Erwin Ty

Olwin … Gary

Nora von Waldstätten … Kyra

Benjamin Biolay … Victor Hugo

Audrey Bonnet … Cassandre

Pascal Rambert … Jérôme

Kristen and Lottie Jeffs LA June 2016 with commentary..from Lottie

CoiSL1fUsAAD8FO — Kristen with Lottie Jeffs in LA June 2016

@lottejeffs
In June I went to Los Angeles to interview Kristen Stewart for ELLE UK’s September issue cover. As my Uber dropped me at the door to her house and drove off, I got a message to say our meeting had be pushed back an hour. I was stranded at the top of a hill in an affluent gated community in the mid-day heat, wearing a boiler suit which in retrospect must have made me look even more suspicious as I trekked back down the hill past palm-fringed mansions with scary dogs outside that barked aggressively at me. I then had to squeeze myself through a gap in the gate to exit, because this being LA, it only opened for vehicles. With 30 minutes to kill and no coffee shops within walking distance I sat, sweating, on a patch of grass by the side of the road, looking like some kind of escaped convict. Needless to say by the time I made it back up to Kristen’s front door I was a hot mess, but she welcomed me in, gave me a cold glass of water in a jam jar (of course) and then we hopped in her car to run some errands, which included going to vote for the Democratic nominee. An hour or so later, back in her living room, drinking iced lattes we got to talking. I found Kristen great company; funny, bright, engaging and best of all happy and grounded. We talked about her work, including her first foray into directing, how she overcame anxiety and her love for her girlfriend- who she told me is not, nor has ever been her personal assistant! Read the full story in ELLE’s redesigned September issue on sale August 3.

my sources for above info…Phoebe Larson twitter and Anna of itsOKtobeYOU.org thank you ladies

Tulsa World… Movie review: Woody Allen’s ‘Cafe Society’ is awash in nostalgia

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart star in a comedy that mixes old Hollywood with that era’s New York social scene in Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society.” Sabrina Lantos/Lionsgate Publicity

Posted: Thursday, July 28, 2016 11:00 am

By MICHAEL SMITH | World Scene Writer |0 comments

“Cafe Society” is one of Woody Allen’s good ones. One of his funny, most romantic but also most bittersweet ones.

His past decade in filmmaking has been one of maddening inconsistency, producing trifles like “Whatever Works,” “To Rome With Love,” “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” and last year’s “Irrational Man.”

Having trouble remembering some of those? There’s a reason.

The good news is that this same decade has brought us some of his seminal works like “Blue Jasmine,” “Midnight in Paris” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

Those titles you remember. Or you should seek them out because each is superb and each is an Oscar-winner.

The this-just-in good news is that “Cafe Society” is in the latter category. Though not as focused as those Allen masterpieces, this is still important Allen.

There’s some familiar territory here in looking back to the 1930s for his story, but after 50-something years and 47 films directed, the man is allowed to wallow in nostalgia as a framing device for his story because he does it so well.

His love for that time period and its people is as obvious as the soundtrack of his beloved jazz, with numbers like great Rodgers and Hart songs (in new arrangements by Vince Giordana and the Nighthawks) playing beside classic recordings from Count Basie, Benny Goodman and more.

I couldn’t help but smile as it seems that there is one of these great tunes playing at all times during the movie.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Bobby Dorfman, playing a young man from the Bronx determined to make a name for himself in Hollywood.

He has an “in”: His Uncle Phil (Steve Carell) is a high-powered agent who’s always having lunch or constantly on the phone brokering deals involving Bette Davis, William Powell and the like.

Bobby instantly falls in love with Phil’s secretary, Vonnie, played by Kristen Stewart and who is tasked with showing Bobby around town.

That’s when he’s not attending Phil’s Technicolor-tinted patio parties, where he meets Hollywood dealmakers who down cocktails and hold court with name-dropping stories.

Legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, a three-time Oscar winner who’s been shooting indie and foreign movies for much of the past 20 years, returns with a triumph, making one of Allen’s most gorgeous films.

Bobby witnesses schmoozing at its highest levels amid extravagant parties, some of those great Los Angeles movie theater palaces and “Golden Age” glamour.

There’s a Hollywood phoniness to much of it that you can tell Allen would never take part in now — and that he despised when he first had to 50 years ago.

It’s all eventually enough to drive Bobby to seek a return to New York to work in his brother’s nightclub.

Here is where the party takes on more of that “cafe society” feel of some of the Gotham intelligentsia gathering but also celebrities rubbing elbows with gangster types in New York nightspots where the champagne flows and the women’s clothing stuns.

It’s a magical time, and we’re awash in nostalgia right along with Allen, who, in that “Radio Days” style, makes a movie that is not only set in the 1930s, but which has a theatricality to the actors’ delivery that feels like it came from a 1930s movie.

Anything that reminds of a movie as good as Allen’s “Radio Days” is a good thing.

Eisenberg pulls off a character more likeable than his average persona, and he’s helped greatly by bouncing his performance off his two romantic interests in Stewart and Blake Lively.

On looks alone, Stewart has never been more lovely, and Lively is drop-dead ravishing, looking like Rita Hayworth in her heyday, in addition to pulling off a complex relationship with Bobby.

As for Stewart, her talent continues to show why her post-“Twilight” career is one of Hollywood’s most interesting.

The young woman could always act, and now she is continually seeking out complicated roles like Vonnie, bringing a variety of shades to this young woman who’s hiding a secret that’s made her a bundle of confusion.

I can’t say that Corey Stoll matches his take on Ernest Hemingway in “Midnight in Paris,” but the man understands the cadence of Allen’s film and what the director wants regarding comedy.

As Bobby’s nightclub-owning brother Ben, a gangster who finds people who get in his way to be as disposable as empty bottles of bubbly, Stoll kills it like he’s in “Goodfellas” done as a comedy.

Carell has never looked more stiff, and Parker Posey looks lost as a Hollywood confidante to Bobby that feels like a character written into the script at some later date.

But these two seem like anomalies in what is an assured cast.

Just as assured is Allen’s screenplay: He’s amused with love, with his Jewish family and faith, and with the Hollywood rat-race, as well as his beloved New York.

And he’s musing with great melancholy about how love can change and fade between a man and a woman, but still in some way also last forever, with that person remaining a part of your heart.

I found myself thinking: I hope that Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow and others see the funny and thoughtful “Cafe Society.”

Indie Film Critic…Cafe Society review 4 of 5 stars…

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‘Cafe Society’ movie review

Dan Delago July 28, 2016 Reviews No Comments

Filmgoers are hoping that Woody Allen’s next film will be his new ‘Annie Hall.’ That iconic film revamped the romantic comedy genre forever. There is no doubt that Diane Keaton’s quirky performance and bohemian fashion elevated it to brilliance. Allen won the Oscar for Best Director and Keaton for Best Actress. It seems like every film Allen churns out (one a year), is always compared to his earlier work. The last time he hit it out of the park was ‘Midnight in Paris’ and ‘Blue Jasmine.’ His latest ‘Café Society’ has that same nostalgic longing for paradise lost. It’s a familiar tale but one Allen embellishes with stunning cinematography and a deeply talented ensemble cast. It’s fun to take another walk with Allen during Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The opening shot is stunning at a backyard Hollywood party with the deep blue water of the swimming pool shimmering in the backdrop. Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Bronx kid with no direction. Eisenberg is the perfect stand-in for Allen. He has a neurotic but likable quality to his personality as he spits out one-liners. Bobby arrives in Hollywood and hopes his talent agent uncle Phil (Steve Carell) finds him work. He makes Bobby wait a few days before meeting with him at his office. He promises him a job starting out as an errand boy. He calls in his secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) to show him around town. Bobby quickly falls in love with her but she already has a much older boyfriend that complicates their burgeoning relationship.

There are terrific gag pieces scattered though out the film. One scene in particular is when Bobby has a call girl come over to his motel room. Candy (Anna Camp) is new to the profession and it turns out she’s Jewish. When Bobby hears that he is her first customer, he tells her that he’s not in the mood. She’s determined to go through with it anyway. The back-and-forth banter between them is hilarious and vintage Allen dialogue. The story also focuses on Bobby’s family life back in New York City. We get to meet his Jewish mother Rose (Jeannie Berlin) and his gangster big brother Ben (Corey Stoll). There is a running gag with Ben that whenever someone gives him or his family a hard time, he solves the problem by pouring concrete over the schlemiel.

The cast is solid. The chemistry between Eisenberg and Stewart is easygoing and palpable. They’ve worked together in 2009’s ‘Adventureland’ and 2015’s ‘American Ultra.’ He is so likable as Allen’s alter-ego that you cannot help but root for him to find love. Many filmgoers have dismissed Stewart as a bad actress as a result of the Twilight series. She proves these accusations are false once again. She gives her character nuances through a minimalistic performance. She nails the innocent Midwestern girl that comes to Hollywood to become rich and famous. Bobby loves those qualities about her but soon she falls for the glam and glitz of Los Angeles. Allen disparages the superficiality of it all for the East Coast. Soon Bobby is longing to return to New York City where his brother gives him a job at a nightclub. Bobby meets the beautiful Veronica (Blake Lively) but there is always regret about what could have been with Vonnie.

This is what makes the film resonant with underlying meaning. All the while, Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography makes every scene snap with aesthetic grace. There is that feeling that even though there is a bit of regret in the choices we make, that life goes on. When Allen’s scruffy voice narrates the events, there is a touch of melancholy in his tone. Time marches on and as the film moves on to a New Year’s Eve celebration, it wistfully shows the characters reflecting on their lives and their choices. ‘Café Society’ is a good film that makes it worth taking another walk down Allen’s old Hollywood

The Sydney Morning Herald……Two films screening at MIFF offer a glimpse of the ever-changing woman behind the headlines.

Stephanie Bunbury

In an age of celebrity narratives, the Kristen Stewart story has proved to be an enduring best-seller. Call up Kristen Stewart on Google right now and there is a string of little “news” items with pictures of her holding hands with women in public, with accompanying texts saying she just doesn’t care any more, she’s going to be just who she wants.

Clearly, that does not include being a person who can ever walk to the corner shop without being bothered. Woody Allen, who directed her in his new film Cafe Society, jokes in Cannes that he can’t stand hearing actors “kvetching about privacy and paparazzi” because nobody should complain about being able to get a good table in a restaurant. Next day, Stewart snaps back.

Woody Allen ''was famous in a very different time'', Kristen Stewart points out. "We have had entirely different ... — Woody Allen ”was famous in a very different time”, Kristen Stewart points out. “We have had entirely different experiences with fame.” Photo: New York Times

“He’s 80 years old. He was famous in a very different time,” she says sharply. “We have entirely different answers to that question because we have had entirely different experiences with fame and the way we consume the reality show that is the entertainment industry. It’s been turned into something that it never was and I’ve been cast as a character that is fully developed by everyone but me. And I have a part in that, for sure.

“People’s impressions of me are not wrong; you can have a cumulative impression of me based on pictures or interviews or movies or whatever and that is not wrong. That is, you know, a genuine impression of me. But you cannot deny that the booming industry that motivates these stories is not about anything but money.”

In Personal Shopper Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, a character who has phases of being "so stuck in her own head, so ... — In Personal Shopper Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, a character who has phases of being “so stuck in her own head, so shut down, that she can’t be remotely physical”. “I know that feeling,” says Stewart. Photo: Supplied

A moment’s break, please, to consider Woody Allen’s recent experience of notoriety: whatever he has or hasn’t done, fame hasn’t exactly been a picnic in the park for him, either. Stewart, however, shoots from the hip; actually, it’s the way she talks about fame that marks her out as a new breed of celebrity, perhaps the only example of that breed, who is indeed who she wants to be and says what she wants to say. Even more remarkably, she has become that person while under the spotlight. There was nowhere else to do it; her Twilight years began almost a decade ago, but she is still only 26.

Not that her relationship with fame was ever comfortable. Stewart was not a confident teenager; she says now that she suffered from crippling anxiety. “I don’t mean in relation to any pressures of my job. Just when you lay your head down at night on the pillow you are thinking, ‘What’s going to happen? Do I have any control over it?’ And contending with having a physical self and not being able to get away from that, the relentlessness of having a mind as well, not having a break from that. It is really overwhelming.”

Now that she says it, you remember how she used to look as if she was trying to escape from her own skin. There is a bit of footage somewhere on YouTube where she is on stage promoting The Runaways with her co-star Dakota Fanning; while Fanning is cool and almost uncannily poised, as if she had been born to stand on podiums, Stewart – who has been acting since she was nine years old, so actually was pretty much born to it – wriggles uncomfortably, as if she has crumbs under her clothes. She doesn’t wriggle now.

And whereas she used to be hesitant and snippy in interviews, she no longer shares the common actors’ view that doing publicity is the penalty you pay for creative rewards. “When you are staying true to yourself and true to your art there isn’t a dark side, because there is not one question that can throw you if you are coming from a very honest place,” she says. “I think what used to alienate me and make me feel put on the spot now, actually just alienates the person asking. Because we just don’t share the same values so I don’t care about that person. And so it doesn’t affect me.”

Kristen Stewart plays a young lawyer in Certain Women. Photo: Supplied

Her film choices since Twilightwent dark show the same gritty determination to plough her own furrow. At the Cannes Film Festival, we meet to discuss her roles in Cafe Society and in Personal Shopper, a kind of cerebral ghost story by French director Olivier Assayas, who will go on to win the festival’s prize as best director. Other recent films have included the misfiring thriller American Ultra and the much stranger, oddly intriguingEquals, where she played an apparatchik in a world where emotions are forbidden.

We have yet to see her in Certain Women, which along with Personal Shopper is showing in this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. It is directed by Meek’s Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt and stars Stewart as a young lawyer in the Midwest who strikes up a relationship with a lonely woman ranch hand. In Ang Lee’s forthcoming Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, she plays the wife of a damaged Iraq War veteran; next up, she is supposed to be making a film about the murderer Lizzie Borden. It’s all interesting stuff, with none of it – with the possible exception of the Ang Lee – likely to set cash registers jangling. That isn’t Stewart’s concern.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Breaking Dawn - Part 1, the third film in the Twilight vampire franchise that ... — Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Breaking Dawn – Part 1, the third film in the Twilight vampire franchise that catapulted Stewart into the spotlight. Photo: Supplied

Admittedly, Cafe Society is classic Allen: a romantic comedy set in Hollywood’s heyday, where the art deco houses look like sets from The Gay Divorcee and glamorous people drink martinis until dawn. Stewart plays Vonnie, a sunnily free-spirited agent’s assistant who befriends an awkward naif – the usual Allen alter-ego, played here by Jesse Eisenberg – who falls hopelessly in love with her.

“Vonnie’s mannerisms and demeanour are pretty outside my immediate personality traits,” says Stewart, “but I don’t feel like I’m that far from the character … I think for a story that’s told in the context of that era, it is really forward and really cool and really modern that she can really indulge in unconventional relationships and not feel bad about it. How do I relate to that? In so many ways, I think we can all relate to that.”

Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) and Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) in a scene from Woodey Allen's Cafe Society. — Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) and Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) in a scene from Woodey Allen’s Cafe Society. Photo: Supplied

That Stewart should leap at the opportunity to work with Allen and her old pal Eisenberg is not so surprising; what is more surprising is that she auditioned for the part, putting herself on tape and presenting for a full read.

“I really appreciate auditioning for something,” she says. “It just sort of validates your place in film, rather than the obvious, ‘OK, I can get your movie some money’. It’s so hard to get a movie made; if filmmakers have to alter their choices in order to do that … well, it happens a lot. I don’t want to be that altered choice.”

Personal Shopper is the second film she has made with French director Olivier Assayas; she had already auditioned, in a sense, playing Juliette Binoche’s personal assistant in Clouds of Sils Maria.

“I think that, right now, Kristen is one of the most exciting actresses,” says Assayas. “I’m not sure where her boundaries are. When I made Clouds of Sils Maria with her, that part was not written for her and it was kind of a one-dimensional character. I was kind of frustrated because I kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, I can push her further and further – and one day I should try’. Personal Shopper is my shot at that. And I still don’t see where she stops.”

Assayas is well-known in France for making complex dramas in which personal stories and political contexts play against each other. In Personal Shopper, he uses the vocabulary of horror movies – ghosts, dark corridors, quivering music – to explore bereavement. Stewart’s Maureen – whose job shopping for busy rich people gives the film its name – is grieving for her dead twin brother at a point where she believes she starts to see his ghost. Then she starts receiving texts, seemingly from the beyond.

For much of the film Stewart is alone on screen, waiting for signs and wrestling with her own hope, fear and lingering scepticism.

“What Kristen had to do was incredibly complex, because she had to invent her own pacing and her own dynamics and I can’t really help her with that,” says Assayas. “When it’s a dialogue scene, I can cut. I can accelerate, I can extend, I can fix it. Here a lot of the scenes were totally dependent on her own defining of the truthfulness of every action.”

Both these characters – all her characters – come from somewhere near Stewart’s surface. “That’s kind of the goal,” she says. “I know a lot of actors like to hide behind characters so they can explore subjects more freely, but I feel the opposite of that. I feel as soon as I feel revealed and visible, that is when I am actually conveying something worthwhile. Vonnie was definitely in there somewhere: I wasn’t faking it.”

Maureen in Personal Shopper was closer to home; she recalled Stewart’s own past anxieties.

“I play somebody who is flitting back and forth between being someone so stuck in her own head, so shut down, that she can’t be remotely physical; she’s so stifled and debilitated by those thoughts that her body literally atrophies. I know that feeling. And I know how to stop it from ruining your life. So when I looked at Maureen I really felt for her and I wanted to press fast forward, because I know that while it lasts longer for some people, it’s kind of temporary. I think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for her and at some point she is just going to say, ‘God, I really fell into a hole there!’.”

Maureen has another side, however, expressed in shopping. Assayas says he chose to make the character a shopper because he wanted to make a film about “a very modern character”. Of course, as Stewart acknowledges, there is some fun to be had in casting her in these roles – as an actor’s PA in Clouds of Sils Maria and a personal shopper here – where she can snap about “these cockroaches” of the press or agonise about finding her client the right shoes, “the more apparent superficialities of what I’m so entrenched in”. It’s ironic amusement. For Assayas, however, there is a larger point to be made.

“I wanted to make a movie about someone immersed in modern life,” he says. “To me what defines modern life is the tension between the demented materialism of the modern world and the longings we can have for something more spiritual and abstract. And I think the fashion industry – and the kind of stupid jobs the fashion industry can generate like the personal shopper – are the epitome of materialism. This is the epitome of an alienated job in our modern society. Like all those jobs that have to do with media, it is not fulfilling. How could it be? It is always about frustration. Although, in a way, the person being shopped for is the more alienated of the two.”

Stewart doesn’t have a shopper, but she has worked for years with the same stylist. Unsurprisingly, she takes a more benign view of that side of her world than Assayas does; for her, it is at least potentially about beauty and sensuality.

“You know it’s a whole job, it’s like hair and make-up and clothes. I actually have a lot of fun with that. You can either hide behind stuff like that or you can actually let it highlight who you are. Some stylists want to reshape you, but when they are good at what they do, they really see you. And if you put on the right garment, it really helps you to stand proudly and you feel you have a context. It’s like you’re not lying.”

It may well be Maureen’s salvation that she is able to immerse herself, as Assayas has said, in the look of things, in the present moment, in things that aren’t about too much thinking. “The base of it in Personal Shopper is that you have someone who is really attracted to beauty, but so self-hating that she feels guilty about it,” says Stewart. “There is a really shameful quality to wanting to be pretty and liking pretty things. Because she doesn’t really like herself, she finds it farcical. Fashion can be a really gorgeous art and there is nothing wrong with appreciating beauty; it is part of what makes us human, it is a version of spiritualism. But it is so f—ing obvious when people are doing it for different reasons and she is not sure where she lies with that.”

Where does Kristen Stewart lie with that? All over the place, probably. We see her on the red carpet in Chanel, looking like a space-age Coppelia, her eyelids black as a panda’s; next thing, we see her in pap shots with her girlfriend Alicia Cargile wearing a plain T-shirt and cut-offs, happy in her skin at last. There is a woman in her life; there have been men, notably her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson; she feels no need either to fudge the truth or define herself as one thing or another. As an actress, she is quoted as saying in today’s celebrity news, she thrives on ambiguity.

It’s a good line, pumping the story along for another day. At one time, the Kristen Stewart narrative seemed destined to culminate in a fairytale ending, rather after the style of the Twilight saga. Thanks to the strength of its lead character, it’s now turned into an arthouse indie in which Stewart, however reluctantly, shares authorship.

“I think what defines Kristen is her sense of freedom,” says Assayas. “She’s a rebel. She’s someone who doesn’t want to be put in a box the way most Hollywood stars are put in boxes. She goes for her instincts and that is something very few American actors can do. No one else of her generation, I would say. She is unique.”

Personal Shopper, August 1 and 12, and Certain Women, July 31 and August 11, are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.Cafe Society opens on October 20. miff.com.au