[Review: IN THEATRES] Blue Jasmine (8/10)

To say Woody Allen’s output has been a little uneven lately is an understatement: coming off of his biggest hit in years (Midnight in Paris), our old pal wrote and directed the messy To Rome with Love. Returning back to both is native New York (although he spends more time on Long Island than in Manhattan) and San Francisco – a city I’m not sure he’s explored before – Blue Jasmine is his most insightful film in years.

Cate Blanchett gives a brilliant performance as Jasmine, a college drop out who falls for Hal (the typically charming snake Alec Baldwin is born to play) – he’s a smooth-talking developer who ends up in jail. Opening in the “present day” and employing flashbacks as Jasmine arrives to her sister Ginger’s apartment in SF (she’s played by Sally Hawkins). Ginger and Jasmine have a broken relationship – Hal conned her ex-husband (brilliantly played by Andrew Dice Clay) into a real estate deal that went bust. The choice to include Clay is wonderful: he frees himself from the text turning out a lively performance.

Blanchett is absolutely brilliant as women who has been knocked down – and then some: Jasmine is sympathetic and complex living a medicated life, unable to connect and rebuild her life. Her sister lacked Jasmine’s ambitions; she’s a bagger at a local supermarket that settled for cute blue-collar guys (Bobby Cannavale plays her current fiancé Chili). Here the men are slightly the problem: Chili grows cold and a little psychotic which is a little too much (he’s a raging, day drinking alcoholic) and Jasmine’s boss, a dentist, if an over the top pervert.

 

At a party she meets a nice guy – Danny Westlake (Peter Sarsgaard) an aspiring politician and the chemistry seems to be right (although things move too quickly). Perhaps that’s the point, everyone is manic here, no more so than our leading lady. Blanchett is dazzling and complex crafts a masterful, Oscar-worthy performance. Too often Allen’s film lack subtly, Blanchett finds it as the film grows darker in its third act.

Blue Jasmine is not without moments of humor – it’s a complex film that touches upon a range of emotions. Over the top at moments, it strikes a cord as Allen’s most complex accomplishment in several years.

Screening: Dipson Eastern Hills, Dipson Amherst, Regal Quaker Crossing