The nerve, the twitch that hit the zeitgeist in recent years, that tinge of uproar sparked by the brief Occupy movement, inspired by the corrupt antics of those richer-than-sin is but the blip of the surface that's keenly and acutely observed in Woody Allen's latest-- a rich and potent character study of one woman's riches to rags saga. It's also inspired the most provocative and surprising drama the filmmaker has tackled in years, decades even, as if Allen was hit by a primal nerve, one in which he sought to create a crowd-pleasing morality fable centered around a once wealthy woman, not just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, by in the full-on throes of one.
Blue Jasmine, a sparkling melodrama, seems to document a sudden and welcome shift, not to mention a glimmer of topicality for the illustrious auteur. For decades, Allen has held a gilded light on the neurotic and prickly dwellers on the upper echelons of society, at first as noted observer, than as insider-- in
Blue Jasmine, Allen retreats and through the prism of a most absorbent character study, he has perhaps given the proletarians the feel good movie of the year.
Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett) is a modern day royal, one of the many superbly coiffed, well spoken members of high society, or she was, now she's tapped out due to the crafty bookkeeping by her high yields husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), and stuck in an eternal existential state of why me. With no skill set to speak of, the loss of the societal camaraderie she once knew and recent bouts of mania, Jasmine has little choice but to journey west to San Francisco and mooch off her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) with little else but her own snobbish haughtiness to sate her. Something is amiss right from the start of the film, as Jasmine, a woman so desperate to maintain authoritative civility, appears lost on the doorsteps of her sister's apartment in one of the very first scenes, as if she's stuck in a nightmare waiting to wake up back at her summer home in Southampton where she can play the consummate hostess, the only role that ever naturally suited her.
