Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Bobby Cannavalle, Andrew Dice Clay, Louis CK, Peter Saarsgard, Michael Stuhlbarg
There are many reasons to pity Jasmine and there are plenty of reasons not to. Her wealthy life fell apart once her husband Hal was sent to jail on numerous fraud convictions (a la Bernie Madoff). She is forced to move in with her sister in a tiny apartment in San Francisco. She finds she's not cut out for much when she attempts to find a job. When she does, it's with a lecherous dentist who apparently isn't familiar with sexual harassment. She also begins talking to people about her life, but she also may be talking to herself a la Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire. Things are a mess for her and through flashbacks we gradually begin to see how her life got that way.
Blue Jasmine is proof that Woody Allen is the most creative writer/director in motion picture history. Films like Annie Hall, Bullets Over Broadway, Match Point, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Sleeper, and the faux-documentary Zelig showcase Allen's diversity. All made by Allen and all totally different films. At 78, Allen is still producing some of the most original work this side of the Sundance Film Festival. Blue Jasmine is original because it doesn't arrive at a payoff which neatly tidies up everything. Instead, we see a woman slipping slowly into madness and perhaps by the end, she will be engulfed by it.
As the film opens, Jasmine (Blanchett) is flying to San Francisco to live with her sister Ginger (Hawkins), who is poor, thanks in part to a bad business deal between her ex-husband Augie (Clay) and Hal. Jasmine still has champagne tastes with a beer budget, as reflected by her first class ticket and numerous pieces of expensive luggage. She dreads living with her sister, especially when flashbacks reveal living in a mansion in aloof bliss with her slickster husband. She claims she knows nothing about her husband's illicit dealings or extramarital affairs, even though they are apparent to everyone else. Maybe she doesn't want to know about them.
We gradually see Jasmine's perfect world in New York crumbling as Hal's business and extramarital affairs come to light. Left alone without resources or wherewithal, she becomes a desperate woman who eventually is committed after having a nervous breakdown in the middle of the street. We sympathize with Blanchett even as she clings to an air of high-fallutin' superiority in her lunch meeting with Ginger's auto mechanic fiancee Chick (Cannavalle), who in a different movie could be Stanley Kowalski to her Blanche Dubois. They mesh like oil and water, although the results aren't as tragic.
Another actress may have tried to make Jasmine too sympathetic, with a "whoa is me" vibe permeating the performance. Jasmine is complicated, but we respond to her because she is now in a situation that wasn't feasible in her sheltered, secure life with Hal. She is slowly clinging to reality and may be unable to come to terms with the fact that her situation is her own doing. One rash response to bad news may have triggered her emotional downfall. Maybe only Blanchett could've pulled off such a tricky balancing act, but she does indeed and never fails to be engrossing.
Baldwin plays Hal as a charming snake-oil salesman who could sell ice to Eskimos. But beneath the exterior is a fortune built on a house of cards that could, and does, come tumbling down at a moment's notice. Jasmine attempts to rebuild her life when she hooks up with Andrew (Sarsgaard), a rich widower with political aspirations. She doesn't bother to tell him of her past, which blows up in her face during a chance encounter with Augie, whose life and marriage were ruined by Hal's deception.
Allen's film is more or less a drama, although it's not ponderous nor heavy-handed. It's a portrait of a woman who once had it all and now has little. We witness her gradual descent into insanity and we can't look away. We've heard the stories about the damage the Bernie Madoffs of the world did to those he swindled. We now see the damage he likely did to his family.
No comments:
Post a Comment