I don't know about you guys but I almost never wind up picking more than one perfectly awesome rental movie in the same weekend. Usually, I grab a second thinking it's just a backup - in case I hate the first film I've picked. This weekend, I am so excited, because in the span of 24 hours I saw not one, but two outstanding films with notably outstanding acting performances: Blue Jasmine and Captain Phillips (which I will review, very soon). There is a reason both of these films are so highly regarded by critics. I don't always agree with critically popular choices where movies are concerned, so I was still a little skeptical.
Why do I even question this sort of thing? Blue Jasmine, without mincing words, is one of Woody Allen's strongest movies in years. The film itself is classic Woody, with complicated, often totally screwed-up characters, intelligent, lively dialogue and the like. But Blue Jasmine seems a bit edgier and livelier than some of Allen's other films. The dialogue is witty, to be sure, but it's just a bit...louder? More forceful maybe? I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but I know that it was engaging and compelling.
Without question, Cate Blanchett deserves to win the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in Blue Jasmine. As Jasmine, a fallen New York City socialite who decides to start her life over by moving in with her estranged sister in San Francisco, Blanchett is a marvel to behold. The woman gives a master class in acting over the course of two hours. I was riveted. Her character is so complicated, half the time I wanted to strangle her, and the other half I just wanted to get her some help.
Jasmine is, you see, quite unbalanced mentally, and she's also a raging alcoholic. The woman needs help. She's vulnerable, and thanks to Cate Blanchett's acting skills, we get to glimpse Jasmine's vulnerability just long enough to feel affection for her. Watching as Jasmine struggles to come to terms with her new reality is painful. She lies: to others, but also to herself, about her situation. She's teetering on the edge of sanity most of the time. And yes, Jasmine was raised in a much different social and economic class than her sister was - but when everything gets stripped away? The two sister's problems are still similar. Jasmine is a woman who devoted her entire life to her husband and her children and while she lived a life of incomparable wealth, once all of that was taken away, she was tossed aside, alone and completely lost, still totally infatuated with what once was. Her sister, Ginger, is a woman who has struggled financially all of her life, and yet, she also finds herself struggling in a possible promising relationship - only to be rejected and left alone (for a time).
Cate Blanchett has given some of the most wonderful performances in film over the past decade or two, and yet, Blue Jasmine feels (to me) like her best in every respect. 
Many have drawn comparisons to Blue Jasmine being a modern-era version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, and rightly so. Where Blanche DuBois longed for her lost youth, Jasmine longs for her lost place in society. Both are doomed characters, to be sure. Blue Jasmine is a truly tragic Woody Allen movie. I'd really like to know what others thought about this - whether you felt that same pull that I did to the lead character.
And I cannot write any review of Blue Jasmine without mentioning some of the other outstanding acting performances by a strong supporting cast: Sally Hawkins, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard, Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay among them. I liked Alec Baldwin in the film well enough, but his character was the one weak link for me. It was almost too over the top (and maybe that's Woody just making his point).
One other thing to note: My spouse, who indulges my movie habit regularly (thankfully), does not like Woody Allen movies. At all. He did, however, enjoy Midnight in Paris greatly, so I was hoping perhaps, by some miracle, he'd like this one too. He did. He said, "I guess I like non-Woody Allen Woody Allen movies." He makes a great point: Woody Allen removes himself completely from Blue Jasmine - I never got the feeling that one of the characters was supposed to be Woody's voice. And it works beautifully, resulting in one of the most exceptional Allen films in many years. It might be one of my favorite Allen films ever, now, thanks in large part to Blanchett's magnificently memorable turn as a woman who cannot face her own, bleak reality and thus cannot save herself from certain tragedy.
Photos courtesy of EOnline.com and Rope of Silicon
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