Immediately from its opening credits and jazz soundtrack, Blue Jasmine has a very old fashioned feel. In today’s age of blockbusters and CGI, Allen’s tragi-comedy feels more like a play on celluloid, in large part for its narrative parallels to Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Blue Jasmine features a similar sisterly dynamic and a central character whose fall from grace is the catalyst of mental instability.
Just like Blanche, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a fading
middle-aged woman who suffers from alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. After years of marriage to Hal (Alec Baldwin),
he is exposed as a fraudster and an infidel, causing Jasmine’s world to fall
apart into one of poverty and homelessness.
Forced from her high-society Hamptons lifestyle of designer clothes,
socialising at parties and constantly reaching for a martini glass of vodka,
she moves to California to live with her adoptive sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins),
whose living standards and relationship history are far beneath Jasmine’s usual
lifestyle.
It’s this clash of cultures that forms the foundation for
much comedy and wry humour in Allen’s witty script. Yet Blue
Jasmine is ultimately a desperately tragic film. Scenes from Jasmine’s past are revealed to
the audience through flashback, but it soon becomes apparent that Jasmine
herself is living through the past. Blanchett’s
performance is exceptional – no wonder she’s an early frontrunner for Oscar
success. Her depiction of mental
breakdown, through ticks and constantly babbling to herself and anyone around
her, is darkly amusing yet frustrating to watch. For all its laughs, Allen’s film is a
harrowing and uncomfortably voyeuristic experience.
As the narrative unfolds, Jasmine meets a number of unlikely
suitors, but her relationship with Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) is built on lies,
paralleling her past with Hal. The
result is a film that takes an incredibly cynical view of modern relationships,
the superficiality of upper-class living and the emptiness of defining oneself
purely through a relationship. Jasmine
often feels more like a caricature rather than a truthful human the audience
can sympathise with, leaving us feeling empty and cold.
Yet perhaps this is the point, the film as circular and
meaningless as Jasmine’s life. As a
result, it’s Ginger who we most sympathise with – life with Jasmine is as
exhausting for the audience as it is for her.
With such an abrasive character at its core, Blue Jasmine is a draining experience, but this is purely testament
to Blanchett’s outstanding central performance.
4/5
