Blue Jasmine -- Film Review
Blue Jasmine
Written and Directed
by Woody Allen
This film is outstanding.
It is the best Woody Allen film since Annie Hall. In fact, it may
be his best ever. These are iconic
characters whose struggles and disintegration capture the spirit of our own
time. This will become an American
classic in the tradition of Death of a
Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, The Great Gatsby, Long Day's
Journey into Night. The story is
complex with many strands and subplots.
But it does not become a jungle.
Like a well written symphony, it is balanced, properly paced, and
modulated. The focus is maintained on
the two lead characters, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) and her adopted sister, Ginger
(Sally Hawkins). Jasmine recalls Blanch
in A Streetcar Named Desire, an extremely
vulnerable woman whose comfortable affluent life is disintegrating and taking
her down with it. But the film goes
beyond being a psychological study of one woman, however representative of her
time and class she may be.
This film
makes a statement about the vacuousness and bankruptcy of the American money
culture, which has come to dominate our increasingly beleaguered middle
classes, who anxiously strive for success and status as defined by the
accumulation of wealth and its accoutrements.
Jasmine's husband, Hal, (Alec Baldwin) serves as an allusion to Bernie
Madoff and the rapaciousness of the Wall Street bankers and executives that
brought about the recent financial malaise that is still afflicting much of the
country. His crimes and dishonesty
destroyed not only himself and his wife, Jasmine, but also took away the hopes
and dreams and opportunities of numerous of lower class people with whom he
came in contact, such as, Ginger and Augie (Andrew Dice Clay). This illustrates the impact that the crimes
of the banks and finance world have had on everyday working people across
America: dimming their prospects and creating difficulties and obstacles and
burdens on their lives that will weigh them down for many years.
The central theme of the film is the arduousness
of the descent that many Americans are now experiencing in their lifestyle,
standard of living, and sense of well being: the emotional toll this is taking
on individuals, personal relationships, and families. A wide swath of the American population knows
that life used to be better in America -- much better -- not only as a
statistical abstraction, but in their own particular circumstances. And there is a connection between that
general degradation in the quality of life in America and the unfettered
pursuit of wealth without bound by this class of voracious, unscrupulous
hustlers in the finance world who effect a superficial garb of legitimacy.
The film does offer a ray of hope in the straightforward
honesty and simple workaday lifestyle of Ginger and Chili (Bobby Cannavale). Although they are both flawed people, their
flaws turn out not to be fatal to their human bonds and their psychological
balance. There is a vibrance and
vitality in their sharing of simple pleasures and daily concerns that leaves
one with a feeling that they might be able to go on and create a workable life
together. But they are clearly
vulnerable and the stability and the hopes that they share today could easily
be derailed by the intrusion of the collapsing lives of those in the upper
tiers of society represented by Jasmine.
The film is a dismal tragedy, but there are many comic aspects to it
that provide a lighthearted feel that allays the overall grimness and prevents
it from becoming dreary or oppressive to watch.
It ends on a note of ambiguity in a minor key. Go see it.
It is a classic portrayal of key trends in contemporary American
life.