Release Date: August 23, 2013
Director: Woody Allen
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Film Pulse Score: 8/10
There is no question that Woody Allen is one of the most – if not the most – celebrated screenwriters in film history. He has been nominated for numerous Oscars for writing and may have just sealed the deal again with his latest offering, Blue Jasmine. There is something else Allen does exceeding well, and that is create characters who are played by actors who go on to be nominated for Oscars (and other awards) and win a good deal of the time. The film was barely out of the gate before prognosticators started the Oscar-talk for Cate Blanchett’s leading performance as Jasmine. Having just seen the movie, I can tell you it is not just hype; Blanchett – as is often the case – is brilliant in her role as an Upper East Side New Yorker who has lost it all – her money and perhaps even her mind.
Allen tells Jasmine’s story non-linearly. We see her really in two places and in to periods of her life. We are introduced to her on plane as she travels from New York – the home of her former glory – to San Francisco – the home of her new reality (the opening “monologue” where Jasmine talks to the woman sitting next to her on the plane is worth the price of admission; it is perfectly written and perfectly acted). In New York, she is shown with husband Hal (solidly played by Alec Baldwin), a financier a la Bernie Madoff who is investing people’s money and losing it all because he is a fraud. He is a fraud in their marriage, too, as we see him cheating on Jasmine with various women. He is, essentially, a cad and Jasmine either does not know or does not want to know; she is too busy being a leading New York City socialite to pay much attention to her husband other than for what he can and does give her – say, in jewelry, an apartment, vacations, a house in the Hamptons, and so on.
In San Francisco, she moves in with her sister, Ginger (the terrific British actress Sally Hawkins who also deserves award attention). Both were adopted as young girls and were raised together. In just a few scenes and with sparse dialogue, Allen, Blanchett, and Hawkins, establish the women’s relationship to a tee. Ginger is already divorced when Jasmine arrives. She had previously been married to a contractor, Augie (wonderfully portrayed by Andrew Dice Clay, of all people), and she is prepared to live with and marry a new guy, Chili (a great Bobby Cannavale). Jasmine is shocked by the lifestyle Ginger – a woman with two kids holding down two jobs – is living on the “other coast.”
There is so much more I would love to talk about, but there are so many surprises in the film I am afraid to say much more. There are indeed some “spoilers,” but I am talking about surprises – surprises in how Allen handles a situation, how Blanchett’s job as a receptionist for a dentist goes, how Ginger’s love life transpires, how Jasmine and the audience find out about Hal’s personal and professional malfeasance, and more. The film is uneven in places and some critics have criticized the film for it. But Jasmine is uneven herself and the film is told from her point of view, so it makes perfect sense that as an audience member, I was off-balance for much of the film. Comparisons have been made to Tennessee Williams’ genius creation that was Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire and to the extent that Allen and/or Blanchett tapped into that well, they did so wisely, unexpectedly, assuredly, and extraordinarily.
Blanchett has delivered some tour-de-force performances before such as in Elizabeth (1998), The Aviator (2004), Notes on a Scandal (2006), and I’m Not There (2007). But here, she has almost outdone herself, which is saying a lot. Allen has outdone himself as well in the sense that the film is simultaneously a quintessential Woody Allen movie and yet seems completely different from anything he has done before. It was a privilege to see, and I hope numerous awards will be coming to Blanchett, Hawkins, and Allen when the day comes.
