Blue Jasmine – Fallen Socialite
Woody Allen was a no-show to accept the Cecil B. Demille award at this year’s Golden Globes. Thankfully his complicated personal life, that’s harshly in the spotlight, has not affected his filmmaking ability. Superb casting, a strong script and the usual nuance style direction of Allen, now an expert in documenting life’s crises, has resulted in the riveting and unpredictable tragi-comedy, Blue Jasmine.
The film stars Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, a delusional Manhattan socialite who was married to Hal a shady stockbroker (a spot-on Alec Baldwin). Her lavish world starts to crumble when Hal divorces her, gets busted by the Feds and later hangs himself in prison leaving Jasmine to cope with the aftermath.
Broke and with not much in the way of survival skills, she leaves behind the Park Ave. high life and moves to San Francisco to live with her recently divorced sister Ginger, wonderfully played by English actress Sally Hawkins. Her more down-to-earth sister has two sons, works as a check-out girl in a supermarket and is engaged to a car mechanic/one-dimensional type called Chili (Bobby Carnavale). Not surprisingly their relationship begins to sour when Jasmine openly disapproves of him. Ginger and Jasmine (whose real name is actually Jeanette) have lived very different lives and now they are forced to come together in a cluttered apartment.
Overall the film shifts between the two parallel storylines of the past and the present therefore containing multiple flashback scenes of Jasmine and Hal’s privileged life and sham marriage versus her present life among working class folks in SF. This part of the narrative was not a realistic depiction of working class culture, and San Francisco as the setting is hardly authentic.
Blanchett channeling a Blanche Dubois with a dose of Ruth Madoff navigates her sadness and shame by popping Xanax, downing vodka martinis, trying to bond with her young nephews and by finding a job as a dental receptionist all while still wearing her snazzy Chanel jacket! She gets a taste of real life through earning a pay check and having to contend with her new boss’s unwanted advances. At a party, she meets an ambitious diplomat named Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), a potential love interest who seems to have depth, integrity and some sophistication.
Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s bitter ex-husband who resents Jasmine is brilliantly convincing and deserves plenty of scripts to come his way.
For a cautionary tale about the consequences of greed, dishonesty and bad choices, Blue Jasmine contains a good measure of dark and self-deprecating humor. The top notch acting totally carries the film even when the script seems to lose focus now and again. Blanchett, who already snagged the Globe and the SAG should start rehearsing her acceptance speech for the 86th Annual Academy Awards! She is officially a memorable Woody Allen leading lady. Dame Judi Dench is the only other top contender in my books. It would be lovely if Sally Hawkins won for Best Supporting Actress but that award will most likely go to a well-deserving Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave.