Blue Jasmine (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Blue Jasmine (2013) – W. Allen

I suppose it is natural to approach any Woody Allen movie with trepidation.  After all, you don’t know whether you will get Midnight in Paris or To Rome, With Love.  Blue Jasmine definitely falls into the good half of his output and this is largely due to Cate Blanchett’s incredible performance as a delirious woman free-falling after her investor husband’s arrest for fraud.  Blanchett does the glassy-eyed muttering truth-talking to everyone bit better than anyone; I’d imagine it is hard and would easily come off foolish (and Allen’s scripts often do contain some clunky parts).  Focusing predominantly on Blanchett’s entry into her blue collar sister’s life (played by the excellent Sally Hawkins) in San Francisco with flashbacks to her earlier uber-rich life with Alec Baldwin, the film seems almost plot-less, a free form character study.  And that is also what makes it great. I never realized that it might owe a debt to Tennessee Williams.