Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine is a remarkably profound portrait of a woman seemingly ruined by circumstance and trying desperately to cling to who she thought she was.  In a stunning performance, Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a New York socialite whose billionaire swindler of a hubby has lost his freedom and his fortune to the FBI.  Jasmine’s identity has been based on the privilege derived from her money, her marriage and her social station – and all of that is suddenly gone.  Flat broke and reeling from the shock of it all, she seeks refuge with her working class San Francisco sister.

Despite her desperate situation, Jasmine arrives still brimming with deluded entitlement, Woody having calculated an undeniable resemblance to Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.  But Blue Jasmine is more accessible than the great play Streetcar because it’s so damn funny.  Jasmine’s pretensions are as pathetic as Blanche’s, but it’s very, very funny when her top shelf expectations collide with her current reality.

Cate Blanchett will certainly be nominated for an Oscar for this role.  Blanchett is able to play a woman who is suffering a real and fundamental breakdown through a series of comic episodes.  She flawlessly reveals Jasmine’s personality cocktail of charm, denial, shock, desperation and sense of authority.

I know that a lot of folks are put off by the creepiness of Woody’s real life marriage, but he has written a great female lead role for Blanchett, and he’s directed actresses to four Oscars in the past, as outlined in this recent New York Times article.

In my favorite scene, Jasmine faces her young nephews across a diner’s booth in a diner.  They ask her questions with childish directness and inappropriateness.  Her answers are candid from her point of view, but nonetheless astoundingly deluded – and just as inappropriate.  The scene is deeply insightful and hilarious.

Who and what has brought Jasmine to her knees?  Certainly she has been victimized by her amoral sleazeball of a husband, but she vigorously refuses to consider taking any responsibility herself.  Can she be forced to look within?  And is she strong enough to face what she would see?

Sally Hawkins is equally perfect as Jasmine’s good-hearted sister Ginger, a woman who doesn’t expect much from life and still gets disappointed.  Andrew Dice Clay, of all people, is excellent as Ginger’s ex, a lug who rises to a moment of epic truth-telling.   Louis C.K. brings just the right awkward earnestness to the apparently decent guy who takes a hankering to the long-suffering Ginger.  Alec Baldwin nails the role of Jasmine’s husband,  a man whose continual superficial charm almost masks his cold predatory eyes, and it’s a tribute to Baldwin’s skill that he makes such a natural performance seem so effortless.

Playing a primarily comic character, Bobby Cannavale delivers a lot of sweaty energy, but with too much scenery chewing. The great actors Peter Skarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg do what they can with far less textured characters.

The Wife thought Blue Jasmine dragged in places, and she was distracted by some components that didn’t ring true about the San Francisco setting – two key working class characters with Tri-State Guido accents and a Sunday afternoon cocktail party where the men wear neckties; she’s dead right on both points, but they didn’t bother me.

Blue Jasmine may not rise to the level of Allen’s Midnight in Paris, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives, but it’s a pretty good film with a superlative, unforgettable performance.