"Blue Jasmine" (2013)

In Blue Jasmine, writer-director Woody Allen looks to make some commentary on class, but he ends up painting class divisions in broad, pointed ways that cause everything to border on caricature. Much like his main character Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), Allen has lived in wealthy privilege for a long time and it leads him to be strangely sympathetic towards the wealthy/formerly wealthy characters he wishes to lightly criticize. It also causes some unsavory depictions of working class individuals. Outside of the film's fantastic center in Blanchett, the film suffers from an uncertain grasp over who any of these people are. They're less human than ciphers -- all the characters seem solely intended to reflect back aspects of Jasmine, except for perhaps Jasmine's sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Jasmine is purposely an almost unbearably unlikable and difficult character. She was an excessively wealthy trophy wife who lost everything when her philandering husband's illicit Madoff-like financial practices were discovered by the feds. Now she's forced to move in with her working class sister who's even worse off now due to a bad business investment Jasmine convinced her to make in her husband's ventures. Blue Jasmine works best as a character study. While Allen's writing is often underdeveloped, Blanchett is tremendously committed, adding small quirks and tics and interesting turns of dialogue -- she carries a weird, affected southern belle accent that would be disastrous if done by the wrong actress. In Blanchett's hands Jasmine becomes not only fully realized but surprisingly sympathetic, in a pathetic, miserable sort of way. To watch Blue Jasmine is to see a slow, inescapable train wreck -- sure, it's messy, but it's hard not to take pleasure in the destruction.

Grade: ★★