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Trust Weighted
Great
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86Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Great 4.0 click to collapse contents
Cate Blanchett transfixes in Woody Allen’s superior dramedy Blue Jasmine. Playing the Jasmine of the title, Blanchett goes from Park Avenue socialite to broken vixen in a performance that masterfully oscillates between elegance and rawness. That last almost assures her an Academy Award nomination.
Woody’s take on the Great Recession focuses on a younger version of Ruth and Bernie Madoff, in the wake of his unmasking. Hubris, narcism and greed make for heaping helpings of schadenfreude.
Her refined opportunism gets juxtaposed with her sister’s easygoing pluckiness, honed through a lifetime of hard-knocks. Forced together by the once-rich sister’s ignominious fall from grace, they form a study in contrasts. Disdainful vs. accepting, mendacious vs. guileless, to name two.
Blue Jasmine isn’t a typical Woody Allen movie, being blessedly free of a nebbish-in-the-middle and focusing more on family and finances than love and death. Thus, Woody-haters can safely enter the theater. They’ll exit amused and stimulated by a master filmmaker and especially by his nonpareil leading lady.