Movie review: Blue Jasmine - a woman on the edge

There are only so many traumas a person can endure until they take to the streets and start screaming.

Blue Jasmine can easily be added to Woody Allen’s string of successes but it is a difficult one to watch. It blooms because the characters, especially Cate Blanchett as the lead, manage to capture the hysteria of a woman whose world is spiraling out of control. And it is the same brutally realistic portrayal of a falling socialite that lends the film its gloom.

The film revolves around Jasmine Francis, a New York socialite whose life implodes after she is left bankrupt and widowed by her fraudulent husband, Hal Francis (Alec Baldwin). Stripped bare, with no money or direction, Jasmine moves in with her sister Ginger in San Francisco. What follows is a series of ill-maneuvered attempts at social climbing and a woman’s desperate bid to reclaim her lost glory.

The highlight of the film is Blanchett and her finesse at creating Jasmine — a sophisticated, beautiful lie, too enthralled by a world that does not even allow her the freedom of self-respect. She is too rich to afford walking away from money and even questioning her husband’s fidelity is tacky. She holds a fragile sense of grace as he goes through a string of affairs and dubious financial dealings. Jasmine is also not allowed sincere remorse or affection towards her sister, Ginger. Sally Hawkins’ character as Jasmine’s non-biological sibling is both a reminder and a clever element used by Allen to shed just enough light on his main characters back story.

In line with Jasmines tastes, we get a pastel, effervescent picture of a past that is neither. Ginger is garish, loud and honest. As the film progresses — in a non-linear arc, obviously — we see Jasmine clutch at her remaining threads of sanity and 100% Egyptian cotton silk, when she moves in with Ginger. Broke and homeless, her fractured mind is further strained as she battles between a pungent distaste and an almost protective admiration for her sister’s lifestyle. As Jasmine tries to rebuild her life, the fatigue that is evident from the beginning starts to catch up, until it outruns her. The beautiful Jasmine talking to an old woman in the plane at the beginning of the film is seen sitting on a bench talking to herself at the end.

Blue Jasmine may not be Woody Allen’s best work but it is one of his braver pieces. Nearly all his characters in past films carry a shade of Allen — moving at a certain neurotic pace, talking without punctuation and exuding enough nervous energy to make you reach out for a relaxant. What sets Blue Jasmine apart is its characters, each molded in their own space, especially Blanchet. It seems like Allen is brave enough to finally let go and shape something organic.  

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Amna Iqbal is the creative head at The Express Tribune. She tweets @amna_iqb 

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 9^th,  2014.