Image from gnnaz.com.
As the film opens, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) has arrived out West. It’s apparent Jasmine has some psychological issues; she has a tendency to talk to no one in particular and swallow large quantities of Xanax. In short order, she meets up with her sister Ginger (Sadie Hawkins), who lives in a working-class SF neighborhood with her two boys. The contrast between the two is striking: Jasmine is willowy, elegant, and graceful, and yet unstable; Ginger is unassuming, not terribly stylish, and much more down to earth. It’s made clear that the sisters are adopted, and not from the same parents; still, they were raised together.
Allen frequently bounces from the present to the past, filling in the blanks of what brought Jasmine to this stage in her life. Her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), a high-powered financier, apparently led quite a duplicitous life, both as a philanderer and as a law breaker. By the time Hal is caught by the Feds, he’s lost a lot of money invested by others, including Ginger and her then-husband, Augie (Andrew Dice Clay). So there’s a lot of resentment of Jasmine on the part of Ginger.
What are we to make of Jasmine? She lived a lavish lifestyle, only to see everything vanish. She has nothing; oddly enough, though, she can afford a first-class ticket and nice luggage. Jasmine seems to suffer from a supreme lack of self awareness – it never occurs to her to not fly first class or to sell items to have some cash on hand. She even overtips the cabbie who brings her to Ginger’s house.
If Jasmine is somewhat of an unappealing character, what of Ginger? She seems very nice, if naive. Her boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) is a bit overbearing and definitely earthy, and he takes an instant disliking to Jasmine. The feeling is mutual, and Jasmine, intentionally or not, jabs her sister by frequently noting that Chili is a verifiable loser. Even two men whom the sisters separately encounter (Peter Sarsgaard and Louis C.K.) are jerks in their own right, on their own terms.
When the lead character is not very likable, I look for growth or at least an attempt at self improvement, and herein lies my disappointment. No one, least of all Jasmine, seems to learn anything along the way, despite changing circumstances and spiraling fortunes. The movie is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy in that insults lobbed between characters turn out to be fairly legitimate, not wild character assassinations.
Blanchett is marvelous as always, playing a difficult character. Hawkins, Baldwin, Cannavale, and C.K. all do quite well, also. But here’s the big surprise for me – Andrew Dice Clay turns in some terrific work here in his few scenes. That chest-puffing Neanderthal from 20 years ago remains but is now channeled into authentic acting. Despite tepid plot and character development, Clay is able to knock this out of the park. That is not a sentence I expected to ever write.
As with most Woody Allen films, the soundtrack and the cinematography are rich and delightful. It would have been nice if the same attention had been paid to the plot, which feels almost recycled from Allen films from the early 1980s – except with neither wit nor wisdom. The movie essentially asks us to watch characters in a pool of their own filling, as they drown themselves and each other. Instead of moving from point A to point B, the plot takes a detour to points M, R, and T and then winds up back at A, as if nothing of any consequence happened in the previous 90 minutes.
Blue Jasmine: **
