Blue Jasmine
(USA, 98 min.)
Written and directed by Woody Allen
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Louis
C.K., Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stulhbarg.
![]() |
Cate Blanchett as Jasmine Photo by Merrick Morton © 2013 Gravier Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics |
Annie Hall. Martha.
Norma Desmond. Margo Channing. Sophie Zawistowski. Blanche DuBois. The
aforementioned women are some of the best female characters of stage and
screen. Idiosyncratic or eccentric, scatterbrained or strong, these characters
are some of the most consistently fascinating women for actors and audiences
alike. They demand repeat performances and viewings since they’re such
multilayered characters. Substantial yet flawed, the backstories of these
characters make them profoundly human: audiences can relate to them since the
actresses inhabiting these characters have so much material to work with in
order to flesh out a dynamic, full-bodied character.
Add to the list of cinematic greats the latest character scripted by Mr. Woody Allen, Jasmine French, played with dynamic gusto by Cate Blanchett. Jasmine is one of the best characters to be written in years and Blanchett’s performance underlines every letter of dramatic depth scripted into her character. It’s arguably one of the most impressive performances since Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning turn as Aileen Wuornos ten years ago. Like the title character of Theron’s film, Blanchett’s Jasmine is a monster through and through. However, also like Aileen, Jasmine is a character with whom one can sympathize while finding many a good reason to abhor her.
If Jasmine evokes comparison to any of the classic
characters mentioned above, though, many film buffs have drawn parallels to
Blanche DuBois. Like Blanche, Jasmine has fallen on hard times as she enters
the picture, nattering to herself and hitting the bottle to pacify her inner
demons. Jasmine (which, one should note, is also the scent of Miss DuBois’s
perfume) arrives in a foreign city to visit and/or take advantage of her
younger sister. Jasmine’s sis, Ginger (Sally Hawkins, reuniting with Allen
after Cassandra’s Dream), is very
much the Stella to Jasmine’s Blanche. Prototypically common and working
class—and not the least bit ashamed of it, Ginger is a polar opposite to her
regal, refined, and uppity sister. (They’re both adopted, but it is said that
Jasmine, née Jeannette, has the better genes.) Ginger is also engaged to a
sweaty low class mechanic named Chili (Bobby Cannavale), who seems to suit
Ginger just fine, but is dubbed another of Ginger’s “loser” boyfriends by
Jasmine. (You’ll recall that Blanche and Stanley didn’t get along all that
well, either.)
Parallels to A
Streetcar Named Desire, however, should hardly suggest that Blue Jasmine is Woody Allen on
autopilot. Woody keeps cranking out pictures, but where he flip-flopped previously
between hits and misses, Jasmine
brings his batting average to two solid home runs in his past three films. Rather
than offering a mere cut and paste job or update of the Tennessee Williams
play, Allen uses Streetcar as an
effective vehicle to draw out the contemporary resonance of his story. One need
not necessarily be familiar with the real life figures that might have inspired
the story in order to appreciate the film.
Blue Jasmine, like
A Streetcar Named Desire, is a
volatile dramatization of America in a state of change. The old ways are
crumbling. Where the America of the Tennessee Williams play had more room for a
gruff polish immigrant like Stanley Kowalski than it did for a posh Southern
belle (re: floozy) like Blanche DuBois, Woody Allen’s dramedy shows that there
is much more pride in being a working-class citizen in 2013, bagging groceries
like Ginger, than there is in being a top-shelf trophy wife like Jasmine.
Jasmine lost everything when her husband, Hal, went to
prison for some dirty business deals. Alec Baldwin, reuniting with Allen after Alice and last year’s To Rome with Love, plays Hal with
spot-on sleaziness. Jasmine, like so many others, was taken in by Hal’s charm
and failed to notice what a shady businessman he was. She also turned a blind
eye to Hal’s philandering by never worrying about what a smooth operator he was
so long as shopping at high-end boutiques between three martini lunches
comprised her schedule. Boozed up on cocktails of anti-depressants and rounds
of Stoli martinis made gratis with
Ginger’s fine liquor—fans of Streetcar
will recall that the boozy Blanche drank Stanley dry—Jasmine unravels as she
revisits these memories while trying to pick herself up.
There’s a pleasure in judging Jasmine as Allen unfolds the
story of his heroine’s breakdown and fall from social grace. Telling the story
in a series of flashbacks dispersed throughout the present-day narrative, one
sees that Jasmine’s downfall was a product of her own willful blindness.
Looking the other way allows for a cozy existence for only so long. A veritable
Queen of Versailles, Jasmine embodies everything that’s wrong with the upper
class in America. She sees only what she wants to see, and she has no concept
of the work it takes to make a living. Enjoying excess and extravagance at
every turn in her former life, she has no idea that the wealth of few can come
at the cost of many.
However, Allen and especially Blanchett construct the
character so that one can’t help but see Jasmine as another of Hal’s victims. A
complicit dupe, Jasmine’s self-worth is utterly shattered by Hal’s betrayal
because her own self-worth is defined by how others see her. Allen and costume
designer Suzy Benziger underscore Jasmine’s vanity by dressing her up in some
of the chicest outfits and pieces of haute
couture one has ever seen in an Allen film. Blanchett carries herself with
regal poise and elegant composure, too, and relishes Jasmine’s full-on
theatricality as she dresses the part of a successful woman when all evidence points
to the contrary.
Knocked off the trophy shelf and cast into the gutter with
Ginger, Jasmine’s psychological annihilation is surprisingly sympathetic. She’s
obviously in need of serious help. Ginger acknowledges, but doesn’t fully
appreciate, her sister’s psychological state. One particularly striking scene
sees Jasmine at the centre of a well-intentioned conversation with Ginger,
Chili, and Chili’s friend, Eddie (Max Casella). Jasmine goes on the defensive
when asked what she would do with her life. She has no marketable skills or
formal training, but she insists that going back to school will help her make
something of herself. However, with no coherent strategy other than to order
another drink, education and the prospect accepting blue-collar work are just
more sources of anxiety for the tapped-out Jasmine.
Jasmine is a peculiar and dynamic character, and Blanchett
commands every frame in which she appears. Especially when Jasmine’s neuroses
reach their penultimate state of Woody Allen-ish frenzy does Blanchett marvel
at conveying the tics whittling away at her wilting character. There’s a hint
of fragile mania to Blanchett’s performance that hasn’t been seen in an Allen
film since the best roles were enjoyed by Dianne Wiest. A highlight of the
film, which comes towards the end, sees Jasmine take Ginger’s two sons for a
play-date at Chuck E. Cheese, which seems like Jasmine’s idea of hell. Pairing
a glass of chardonnay with a buffet of White Whine while the kids nibble crappy
pizza, Jasmine hits her lowest point—and Blanchett her highest—as she drones on
about losing everything and bottoming out. Not once does Blanchett overdo it as
she chews the scenery in A-grade Acting. It’s the first genuinely award-calibre
performance of the year and Blanchett’s best work since playing Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.
A typically strong Allen ensemble surrounds Blanchett.
Hawkins offers a turn full of heart and empathy as Ginger. She’s the character
to whom many members of the audience can likely relate, but, like Blanchett,
Hawkins doesn’t hide the faults of her character as she plays Ginger with a
kind of happy-go-lucky naiveté. One feels bad for Ginger, though, when she gets
the rug pulled out from under her during one unfortunate phone call, but it’s
also the moment in which Ginger most resembles her sister for being blind to
what is around her for the sake of social mobility. The men of the film,
Baldwin, Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard, Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay, the
latter two playing Ginger’s other flames (one a lover, the other her boorish
ex-husband), are equally good in complementing Blanchett and Hawkins in some of
the films’ most dramatic moments, but also in finding the rhythm of Allen’s
comedic beat underlying the film.
Blue Jasmine, like
many of Allen’s more sober works, is balanced with a fine funny bone to support
the meaty bits of his social commentary. If Midnight in Paris is Allen’s best comedy since Hannah
and Her Sisters, then Blue Jasmine
is arguably Allen’s finest drama—and most substantial film—since Crimes and Misdemeanors. His scathing
take on the upper crust of America is a smart and humorous look at the decay of
America’s top-tier in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Allen isn’t
afraid to let the audience dislike Jasmine for her complicity in bringing about
the ruin of others; however, he’s smart enough to find the victim in the woman
who was caught up in the thrills of easy living and high society. Allen made a similar
indictment of class in 2005’s London-set Match
Point, but this tale that cuts between swanky Manhattan and grungy San
Francisco feels closer to home. Match
Point, as good as it is, feels like an outsider’s musing on a deeply
entrenched class-system. Blue Jasmine,
meanwhile, feels topical and relevant. The threading of commentary onto a loose
framework of A Streetcar Named Desire
lets the tale feel timeless, too. Returning to America after a trip around the
world, Allen has come back with something smart to say about his home country.
It’s not as pretty as the tale of Midnight
in Paris, but Blue Jasmine’s
dynamic look at the fall of America’s wealthy marks one of the finest films of
the Woodman’s career.
Rating: ★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Blue Jasmine is currently playing in Ottawa at The ByTowne.