Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen) [43 points / 5 votes]
"It's impossible to write about Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine without referring to A Streetcar Named Desire. Both works are about fragile, refined women who find themselves displaced and dependent upon the kindness of strangers following scandal and subsequent nervous breakdowns. When we see Jasmine, a recently dethroned Park Avenue socialite, sizing up her sister, Ginger's modest San Francisco apartment (and her own temporary living situation) in Blue Jasmine's opening scenes, we can practically hear Vivien Leigh's line, 'Can this be her home??' from the 1951 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams classic play.
What distinguishes Blue Jasmine as an original work, however, is Allen's skillful blending of flashbacks into the main narrative, providing contrasts between Jasmine's charmed former life and the harsh reality of her present life in which she's forced to re-invent herself. The aforementioned scene of Jasmine's barely-contained dread upon arrival to Ginger's apartment in San Francisco, for instance, cuts sharply to a scene of her, years earlier, being shown a spacious Manhattan penthouse by her husband, Hal. A later scene, where Jasmine coaches herself to take deep breaths following a stressful day at the dentist's office where she has taken a job as a receptionist, transitions to yet another flashback scene, opening with the line, "If you take a deep breath, you can smell the honeysuckle'", where we see Jasmine at her country house, looking very regal in a riding outfit as she discusses her stepson's success as a Harvard student. Flashback scenes such as these serve to highlight the seductiveness and allure of Jasmine's former life, while shedding light on the particulars that have led to her fall from grace, from her willed ignorance of Hal's financial chicanery and marital infidelities to her strained relationship with Ginger, whom she looks down on. They also provide a context to Jasmine's frequent nostalgic states of reverie in which she talks to herself.
This seamless storytelling structure, complemented by a rueful jazz soundtrack and engaging dialogue, sets the stage for a collision course among characters representing two vastly different social strata. Allen's choices in actors for these parts are as creative as they are spot-on, from casting controversial comedian Andrew "Dice" Clay as Augie, Ginger's blue-collar ex-husband, to Alec Baldwin as the charismatic swindler Hal, who steals Augie and Ginger's lottery winnings after promising to make them rich. Bobby Cannavale is also well-cast as Ginger's present-day boyfriend, Chili, who, in one hilarious scene tries to set Jasmine up with his friend Eddie, who couldn't be less her type; also strong is Peter Sarsgaard in the role of Dwight, a well-connected diplomat whose appearance in the second half of the film as Jasmine's love interest offers her possible salvation. Then, there is Sally Hawkins, who subtly underscores Ginger's optimism and looseness with hints of low self-esteem and dissatisfaction with her lot in life (the scene where she chides Augie for telling tasteless Polish jokes at Jasmine's fashionable birthday soiree is one of a few examples).
Finally, Blue Jasmine would be unimaginable without Cate Blanchett (my choice for Best Lead Performance - Female in a very competitive year), who anchors the film with her captivating and exquisite performance as Jasmine. Having seen Blanchett's performance as Blanche 4 years ago in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of A Streetcar Named Desire during its run at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, I could be biased, but it seems that it is in her DNA to play such a part. It would be so easy to dismiss Jasmine as a contemptible character who deserves her fate, but Blanchett plays her in such a humanizing way that the viewer is persuaded to see past her haughtiness and remain hopeful for her even in her worst moments of humiliation and self-delusion. Jasmine may be snobby and pretentious, but it is her valiant effort to maintain her dignity and fragile hold on reality that ultimately win our empathy. In the scene in the dentist office, for instance, when Dr. Flicker (Michael Stuhlbarg) preys on Jasmine's vulnerability and forces himself on her, we recoil and feel protective of her. We also can't help but feel triumphant for her when she later meets Dwight, even while he seems to be more enchanted with what she represents, with her Chanel belt, Hermes bag, and Vivier shoes, than with who she really is. It is the dramatization of this kind of self-deception and false identity that makes Blue Jasmine to be a poignant cautionary tale that places it next to other standout Allen films from the last 25 years, such as Match Point, Husbands and Wives and Crimes and Misdemeanors." -- Kevin Dufresne
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