This observer counts himself among the luckiest of the lucky after seeing Cate Blanchett capture Blanche Dubois onstage, in a performance for the ages, at BAM in Brooklyn during a teasingly short run a few years ago. In Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, a gem of a film that twists the themes of A Streetcar Named Desire into a snarly, brilliant tour de force, Blanchette shines in an equally genius performance.
Allen, now 77, has lately directed some of his very best films since 2005’s Match Point marked a poignant comeback for a career that looked like it was heading into the shadows. Blue Jasmine is solidly among the top quarter of his 40-odd films. Like vintage Woody, it is certainly funny in spots, but hardly a comedy. What is parallel with Streetcar is we get a run-down has-been of an elegant woman who remains alluring despite her inability to coinicide her imagined past with her real one. What is different from the Williams play is we get a deftly superimposed Bernie-Madoff-esque plot with a slick Alex Baldwin appearing in flashbacks as Jasmine’s former husband Hal–who brought her to ruin, only she hasn’t admitted it yet.
At the film’s outset, we get a distracted, frazzled Jasmine talking the ear off of a woman at an airport luggage terminal. We soon realize that she just met the woman, who can’t wait to get away from her. Jasmine might as well have been talking to herself–something, incidentally, she will be prone to do throughout the film. It’s Blanche’s madness gone not a little berserk. We watch Jasmine plop herself down at the San Francisco apartment of her cheery sister, Ginger (a very good Sally Hawkins), who remains socially miles away from the stratified circles to which the the formerly wealthy, pampered Jasmine was accustomed. A flashback sets the tone of how emotionally remote the two adopted sisters were when Jasmine was a queen of the ball. Additionally, Hal pulled a financial scam on Ginger and her former husband (Andrew Dice Clay, not a bit out of his league here). Thus the irony that, now down on her luck, Jasmine shows up at Ginger’s door–a situation that does not go unnoticed by Ginger’s blue-collar boyfriend, Chilli (Bobby Cannavale), who’s been dying to move in with her and now faces an amusingly preening and pompous Jasmine as a short-term house guest turned potentially long-term fixture. It’s not long before Jasmine meets up with a witty and wealthy diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard). She can’t wait to gain back her status. Her reliance on her ever-present Vodka bottle and Xanax to steady herself while she makes her big play doesn’t seem to increase her chances. Yet she’s a hard one to fault. Her shaky judgement always seems to come from a place with its own internal logic.
Much of the tension surrounds Jasmine’s grip on reality–or the lack of it. Blanchard is a joy to watch as she forces the viewer’s full empathy on a complex character who’s admirable and pitiful, noble and devious. I fully expect the character Jasmine to stay with me indefinetly–much as her literary precursor Blanche. Both serve to remind us of human frailty. In all its splendor.
4.5 Woody Topping Himself With A Gem (out of 5 stars)