Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Woody Allen
Quick Impressions:
Every year I feel the autumn arrive as the angle of the sunlight falling on me begins to change. By the time I was a freshman in college, my annual fall depression didn’t take me by surprise anymore. What surprised me was how deeply I felt it. What began to terrify me was that it didn’t go away.
“Something’s wrong,” I kept saying. I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t fight it off. Every day, the days grew shorter, the nights grew longer, and I slid a little further from a sound state of mind. It wasn’t just sadness. I found it hard to focus. Before long, I had trouble reading. I couldn’t sleep. I forgot to use utensils. I ate with my fingers. Then I stopped eating. It never got better. It got worse and worse and worse.
My friends wanted to help. One evening, not yet so very far into my gradual slide into psychosis, they decided to head things off by doing everything in their power to help me feel better.
“You like movies,” my roommate said. “Student government is showing a movie tonight on campus. Our homework can wait for one night. We’ll all just relax and go watch the movie. That will cheer you up.”
The movie was A Streetcar Named Desire.
Tonight after we left Blue Jasmine, I asked my husband, “Have you ever seen A Streetcar Named Desire?”
“No,” he said, and I replied, “Well you have now.”
Blue Jasmine isn’t actually exactly like A Streetcar Named Desire, but the films are definitely having a conversation. (Maybe a bit of a one-sided, Jasmine-style conversation since I don’t think Streetcar has much incentive to engage, but a conversation nonetheless.)
But beyond some characters very reminiscent of Blanche, Stanley, and Stella, Blue Jasmine has one other thing in common with the 1951 Tennessee Williams scripted classic—it is definitely the wrong movie to show to cheer up a depressed friend.
But assuming your friend is not currently struggling with depression, then Blue Jasmine probably is a good film suggestion for an evening out. Don’t go expecting a comedy. This film is a dark drama with few laughs, but it’s still a fascinating character study, made all the more engrossing by a particularly strong (and Oscar worthy) star performance by Cate Blanchett, and a pretty compelling supporting performance by Sally Hawkins (who could possibly sneak her way into a nomination, too, but probably won’t).
If well-acted, thoughtfully scripted character studies interest you, then you and your friend will probably enjoy Blue Jasmine (unless your friend is Mia Farrow. I certainly don’t know Woody Allen well enough to guess his intent or comment on how his personal life may be an influence on his art, but I would strongly recommend against taking Mia Farrow to see Blue Jasmine. Besides, if your friend is Mia Farrow, then you’ve probably got better stuff to do, anyway.)
The Good:
Going in and knowing nothing about the film but a one-line synopsis, I expected Jasmine to be an unpleasant troublemaker. At the very least, I expected her to inspire ambivalence. When I watched the film, however, I was surprised to find her almost completely sympathetic. I’m not saying that the character is admirable or inspiring, but she’s not bad, she’s piteous. Anyone who watches the film and does not feel empathy for her has never struggled with mental illness. At the very least, she ought to arouse pity. She’s not a good person, but she’s not a whole person, either. She’s broken and tormented and genuinely ill. The opening scene of the movie immediately establishes her not as someone who is faking a crisis to get attention or resources. The woman is clearly still suffering the after effects of a significant breakdown, and the longer the film goes on, the more evidence we see that she was never actually stable in the first place.
Meanwhile Sally Hawkins plays Jasmine’s sister Ginger as a highly sympathetic and quirkily charming character who is potentially somewhat pitiable herself.
The movie is entirely character driven. The plot is slow to advance and made up of familiar elements we’ve all seen a million times before. It’s one part a look at the aftermath of white collar crime (like tax evasion and insider trading), one part nod to A Streetcar Named Desire (though the way the actual plot unfolds is quite different), and one part a typical Woody Allen movie featuring multiple couples endlessly voicing their anxieties as they attempt to form functional romantic relationships.
To be more honest, the movie is mainly Cate Blanchett driven. It’s her powerful, riveting turn as Jasmine that holds the whole thing together and keeps us watching. Sally Hawkins is exceptional, too, some of the supporting actors are quite good, and both the soundtrack and the score are fantastic. The music seems to play an active role in contributing to the story.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Cate Blanchett/Best Scene:
What is it about crazy women and diners? Last year, Jennifer Lawrence won an Oscar for a performance that showcased a moment of her unstable character coming unhinged in a diner booth, and now Cate Blanchett takes this emerging diner booth/female insanity subgenre to the next level.
This movie is not a comedy, but my husband and I laughed throughout this increasingly awkward (and powerful) scene (sotto voce, though). Blanchett chases every painfully wrong remark with another even more alarmingly inappropriate until by the end of the scene, her two young nephews are probably scarred for life, and she’s not even aware she’s sitting with them anymore. It’s a masterpiece of self-absorbed misery, one of the most effective on screen breakdowns I have ever seen in a film.
At this point, it doesn’t even matter who else is running. Blanchett deserves to win the Best Actress Oscar for this performance. Of course, it’s much too early to evaluate her actual chances, but this is the best acting by a lead actress that I’ve seen in a very long time. Woody Allen sure can write, and Cate Blanchett knows how to act, and the combination results in a lot of explosive power on a movie screen.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment Sally Hawkins:
My husband and I loved Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, and we’d like to see her actually get an Academy Award nomination this time around. (She certainly deserved one in 2009, the year she won the Golden Globe for playing Poppy so brilliantly.) It’s so early in the year, and there’s already a stronger early-in-the-year supporting candidate—Octavia Spencer for Fruitvale Station—so I really don’t like Hawkins’s odds of making the final five, but I’ll continue to root for her (until I’ve seen someone better).
As I try to think of a best moment, I can’t seem to help going back to the brief scene where she’s put on her new perfume. She barely says or does anything there, but it seems like the summation of a quietly powerful performance. Everything that she’s let us see about her character comes to a head right there. I also really like the phone call that comes just a bit later.
The Other Performances:
Playing Jasmine’s husband Hal in a movie-long series of flashbacks, Alec Baldwin is perfect but could play the role and hit every note in his sleep. The performance is basically flawless, but it’s hard to congratulate Baldwin too much because for him, nailing the part requires nothing more than activating autopilot, slipping into a nice suit, and getting the perfect haircut. So do we congratulate Baldwin or the casting director for his fine, dependable work here? He’s great, but the character is really nothing special and never gives him a chance to show off any range or climb outside the Alec Baldwin box. Still this is the kind of film that any seasoned actor would be glad to have on his résumé, and Baldwin makes the most of his screentime.
Peter Sarsgaard is a highly talented, versatile chameleon type who loves to take risks and usually makes good films. But for whatever reason, I always find him a bit creepy. He always just has this grin plastered all over his face, this leer that makes him look like he’s up to something that’s probably illegal in at least half of the forty-eight contiguous states. (If you’re wondering why I mention the contiguous states at all, it’s because originally I had him being up to something illegal in all of them, but then I realized that the grin suggests a particularly offbeat brand of skullduggery, one which would probably not be acknowledged so widely.) I don’t know what I find so suspicious and unsettling about Sarsgaard’s usual screen persona, but my point is, it’s absent here. In this movie, he seems handsome and charming, though I do find his character pretty weird. I mean, Jasmine behaves deplorably, but his own behavior is far from blameless. For someone who plans a future in politics, he does everything very quickly and haphazardly and doesn’t seem to know how to vet a romantic interest even as effectively as some ordinary nobody would. Sarsgaard’s performance is good, though, a little understated, perhaps, but his final moment in the car is actually extremely well played.
It was a huge shock to me to see Andrew Dice Clay playing a serious (and fairly large) dramatic role in this movie. I’m used to thinking of the Diceman as an 80’s comic who became a punchline. He’s aged tremendously (but not badly) since I last paid any attention to him. He makes a thoroughly convincing Augie, and seems like such a natural in the role that I find myself wondering why Clay hasn’t pursued more dramatic roles before now.
As Dr. Flicker, the always intriguing Michael Stuhlbarg is responsible for some of the most thought-provoking moments in the movie. Until very late, the Dr. Flicker drama was my favorite part of the story. Stuhlbarg’s performance gets a lot of the credit for that, perhaps not quite as much as Allen’s writing, but it’s definitely Stuhlbarg’s nuanced acting that makes the character something more. For example, when Dr. Flicker first takes Jasmine for a drink, the scene begins ordinarily enough, but its final moments began to fill me with a sick uneasiness, and I give Stuhlbarg and his careful line delivery credit for at least half of that development.
Louis C.K. seems comfortable, natural, effortless, and relatively kind in his part. I only wish we had seen a little more of him. We don’t see enough of Alden Ehrenreich as Danny, either. His last scene is good, but before that, he’s hardly appeared in the movie.
Aside from the two sisters, Bobby Cannavale gets to play the most interesting and resonant character, Chili. To Cannavale’s credit, I have yet to figure out how I feel about Chili. Do I like him or hate him more? Am I on his side? Is Jasmine right about him? Does it matter? His character’s presence forces some fascinating questions into the minds of the audience. Is it possible for Jasmine and Chili to be right about each other without either of them actually being in the right? Is Jasmine’s judgment of Chili invalidated by the fact that her own self-concept is radically out of whack? Can Chili be right about Jasmine and yet still be the wrong person for Ginger because of his own personal failings? For a while, the movie seems to be carefully building an either/or moment, when we must wholeheartedly embrace our decision to back either Chili or Jasmine. But then instead of such an ultimatum, the movie stops pushing on their conflict and gives them both the opportunity to back away and regroup. The results are not very satisfying, but they are quite thought provoking. The part with the phone is also impossible to look away from.
Best Scene Visually:
Jasmine’s face is the best visual in this movie. Blue Jasmine is absolutely never boring when we’re watching Cate Blanchett, and her face is always in flux. It’s not just that she’s a striking woman (attractive and reasonably put together even in distress) it’s that she’s going through so many interior changes—all the time—and she’s letting us see them all written on her ever-changing face.
I particularly like the way she responds to her first interaction with Chili and his friend. The part at the restaurant is fascinating enough, but the bit later on when she describes hanging is absolutely to die for.
Best Action Sequence:
I was fascinated by the scuffle behind the counter that happened just before Jasmine decided to try her luck at a party. Here’s why. When it comes to looks, I’m no Cate Blanchett. (And I’m certainly no Vivien Leigh.) But there was at least one time when men suddenly started paying attention to me—when I was going through a mental breakdown. It was never the men I wanted, of course. (Well, in fact, when completely psychologically distressed, I wasn’t even thinking about romance, just survival.) But it’s like blood in the water with sharks. Predators sense vulnerability, and the kind of people who pounce on weakened women are not usually the ones you’d expect. The character who backs Jasmine into a corner isn’t necessarily some villain. He probably does not think of himself as trying to hurt her. Sometimes the really dangerous types are the ones who are sure they can help, the ones who always have an eye out, looking for people to help. The music in the movie suggests that this film is a survey of the various types of disappointing men, and this moment provides an additional type for our perusal.
The later scene with Chili and the phone is equally powerful and disturbing.
The Negatives:
Watching the film, you do wonder, Is the moral of this story that if you’re a slightly crazy woman with a philanthropic streak, when your successfully amoral partner wants to leave you for a much younger woman, you’d better think twice before dragging his name through the mud and taking him to court because otherwise you’ll wind up a broken old woman who goes around talking to herself about the past over and over again while no one else is listening or takes you seriously? I think Woody Allen is a great writer who has not just a famous name but actual talent to go with it. Even his worst movies show flashes of genius. He almost always writes a fascinating script. But it’s so hard to watch the ending of this and not think, Those darned crazy women who try to make trouble when their husbands leave them for teenagers! Why won’t they just shut up and eat their caviar with quiet dignity instead of going on and on and on about it?
This isn’t really a bad thing, I guess, but the film did leave me with a bad feeling. Even A Streetcar Named Desire lets us enjoy the idea that all the horrible things that we just watched did make some kind of a difference to someone. But at the end of this movie, we don’t really know how to feel. At least, my husband and I didn’t know. On the ride home, he said, “I wish we’d gotten more resolution for Jasmine’s story.” I agreed and added, “Yes, and I’m not really sure how to feel about Sally Hawkins and her relationship.” He agreed.
It’s hard to see the storyline about the estranged stepson character and not think of Woody Allen’s own estranged son. It’s hard not to imagine that this idea is coming from his own reaction to painful personal experiences. And then that suspicion makes you wonder even more, So what is he actually trying to say here? What is the point of all this?
I hate movies that spoon feed the audience every bit of the plot and themes of a film, and I hate movies that beat us over the head with a moral or set of instructions even more. Blue Jasmine veers to the opposite extreme. When the film abruptly ends, it gives us absolutely no idea what we’re supposed to take away. I think the ambiguity would frustrate me less were it not for the strong temptation to drag Allen’s personal life into the equation. I don’t like doing that. I don’t know Woody Allen well enough to speak to his intentions. But it feels so unavoidable with this.
Something Jasmine harps on very, very early is that she hasn’t finished college. She dwells on this incessantly throughout the film, and we see she’s very upset about what she has denied herself by making such a significant early mistake. But then very late, we begin to get the idea that maybe all this talk is just a coping strategy that lets her work through feelings of guilt, anguish, and loss by transferring her anxiety about something else to a less painful set of personal memories. It’s very hard not to wonder if perhaps Allen is not trying something similar. I really don’t think I’m qualified to make these kinds of interpretive leaps into his personal life, but I considered buying Mia Farrow’s book a couple of years ago, and accidentally spent several hours reading up on it and about her take on their break-up and about their son’s response to the whole thing. It’s none of my business, really. But I do think Jasmine’s use of psychological coping mechanisms to stave off complete breakdown for as long as possible is simultaneously fascinating and vexing.
I also think the movie wastes San Francisco. Sally Hawkins seems to be pretending to be a watered down version of Marisa Tomei (or maybe even Talia Shire). She really doesn’t seem like someone from San Francisco, more like a New Yorker (or at least someone from the Atlantic seaboard) and maybe even vaguely Italian. Occasionally, we see bits and pieces of the city, but after watching the movie, I must say the city that makes the strongest impression is not San Francisco at all but flashback-featured New York. Most of Allen’s recent “set in a city” movies really make me feel like I’m walking through that city and getting a taste of what makes it so special. I never really connected to San Francisco in this movie (although the way characters kept staring at the bay reminded me of Mary Tyrone in A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.)
Overall:
This movie is not quite as depressing as A Streetcar Named Desire. Well…actually, yes it is. Blue Jasmine is extremely depressing. But at least it’s not as weird as Suddenly, Last Summer (a Tennessee Williams project that my husband has seen because back when we were first dating, I decided watching it would be a great idea). Basically, this movie is a well written and superbly acted character driven drama that always holds the audience’s attention but leaves us feeling as adrift as Jasmine at the end. Cate Blanchett’s performance alone, however, makes the movie worth seeing in the theater. She’s phenomenal and exciting, and even though it’s early, I would not be surprised if she actually wins the Best Actress Oscar (though I also wouldn’t be stunned if later performances crowd her out, and she just misses a nomination). Sally Hawkins is awfully good, too, and Woody Allen still writes a mean screenplay.