Wow, what a year for films! After watching American Hustle, I viewed Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine and I must say you won't waste any money watching this!
Cate Blanchett is excellent as Jasmine whose fall from extreme wealth is terrifying, she is also perfect for this role - Cate exudes sophistication and class - perfect match for playing Jasmine. Cate may very well win the Oscar for Best Actress for this role. You see her break apart mentally as the world she knew disappears and she loses everything - her husband, her child, her home, her sister and finally has nothing. Cate is married to Hal (Alec Baldwin) who plays a Bernie Madoff-esque degenerate whose only concern is bedding pretty young women and blowing money. Hal is an older version of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio plays him in Wolf of Wall Street) - he scams people out of their money - Jordan Belfort ripped off people to the tune of $200 million, but in Blue Jasmine we see Hal squander $200,000 of Jasmine's half-sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) lottery winnings. Unlike Wolf, this film doesn't lionize the excess wealth, instead it shows how it destroys lives. The film shows Hal's philandering resulting in Jasmine leaving NYC to live with Ginger in San Francisco. Jasmine is also completely helpless, has no marketable skills and finally has to take a job as a dental receptionist in an office while she studies to be an interior designer. She really has no grasp of reality, for example she flies to SFO first class instead of saving the money and flying with the normal people. Every step of the film shows Jasmine failing and unraveling through her own fault or just bad luck.
What is great about this film is how Woody Allen depicts the extremes of social classes. Jasmine is the rich out-of-touch narcissist, she has the best clothes, has a gigantic mansion, frequents the best shows and restaurants, etc. She has everything everyone wants right? Wrong! She also is hooked on pills and vodka martinis, has a cheating husband, a son who hates her, and friends that are shallow and materialistic. Not what I'd want - thank God I have small troubles! On the other hand, Allen shows the working class in a very caricatured way - Ginger has a boyfriend Chili (Bobby Canavale) - yes it is unbelievable but that is his name - who is a car mechanic has no class, says inappropriate comments, is rude and has little to no sense. He's also not above crying in public after Ginger cheats on him with another loser. Allen even uses San Francisco - a city with extreme wealth and poverty - as the place where Ginger lives. Woody Allen might actually be making this film as a metaphor for how the US is becoming very stratified and dangerously unstable - just like Jasmine - the rich are concerned with themselves, they lie, cheat and are driven by material consumption, while the working classes are wallowing in their own ignorance and essentially do the same things as the rich but on a smaller scale. Blue Jasmine, although funny throughout, is ultimately a warning about where we are heading as a society - ignorant, greedy, hooked on alcohol and pills, immoral and fixated on short-term pleasures. I wonder if Aldous Huxley would agree?
Here's the trailer:
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