Review: BLUE JASMINE

BLUE JASMINE  (Drama/Comedy)
Three and a Half Stars out of Four
Directed by Woody Allen
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard
PG-13 for mature thematic material, language and sexual content.
Verdict:  The boldly unlovable BLUE JASMINE is one of Woody Allen's better films as of late, taking his fondness for neurotic characters with vain personalities to a darker level, similar to his 1989 minor classic, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.  It's difficult to say what about the film is so appealing, be it schadenfreude, the craft or whatever else, because it's so acidic and ultimately a downer, but the more devoted faction of moviegoers are likely to recognize an uncomfortably pleasurable value to it, while casual moviegoers may be less consistently pleased.  However you receive the film though, Cate Blanchett's performance as the titular character is irrefutably absorbing and a definite contender at the upcoming Oscars.
YOU MAY LIKE BLUE JASMINE IF YOU LIKED:
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989)
ANNIE HALL (1977)
THE AVIATOR (2004)
AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)

I don't care much for the A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, the story of a Southern Belle woman fallen from grace after her husband's suicide, who has a total meltdown and moves in with her lower-class sister and her greasy, brutish lover.  It's a classic, I know, but watching Vivien Leigh flutter about a New Orleans apartment while dreamily reminiscing and criticizing and griping in her wispy Southern twang makes me want to break things.
Ironically, I did enjoy Woody Allen's latest film, BLUE JASMINE, though, which could be well described as a "re-imagining" of the classic Tennessee Williams play, later adapted as an Elia Kazan film, relocated to a contemporary San Fransisco setting.  And yet, I cannot quite pinpoint what it is that makes it so satisfying; I doubt that it would be a pleasant experience for most mainstream audiences, but perhaps it is a form of satisfaction not bound to entertainment or pleasantries.  Still, it might merely be the sensation of schadenfreude from watching terrible people do terrible things and then reap the terrible consequences.
Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett plays the titular character, Jasmine Francis, the high-strung and vapid wife of Hal, a Wall Street aristocrat (Alec Baldwin).  After Hal is incarcerated for running a Bernie Madoff-like investment scam and commits suicide in his prison cell, Jasmine is forced to turn to her blue-collar adoptive sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins).  Jasmine's fragile, pill-popping state-of-being is strained by living in her sister's cheap apartment with Ginger's two boys, working as a receptionist in a dental office where her boss makes relentless advances, and as she clashes with Chili (Bobby Cannavale), Ginger's grease monkey fiance.
Jasmine is a narcissistic and utterly unpleasant woman with an elegant demeanor constantly on the brink of collapse; an unlikely person to choose to spend an hour and forty minutes with, but somewhere between the combined talents of Blanchett and Allen, they make it work.  Don't mistake me; she is not likable, and hardly sympathetic, but there is something oddly endearing about her which allows the audience to root for her as she bemoans her just desserts and hurts those around her; goodness knows why.
The cast is excellent all around, but Blanchett's performance deserves special recognition as certainly stunning and absorbing, and she's sure bet to be nominated (again) in the Best Actress category at this year's Oscars, although the cynics who go in for this sort of movie can easily enough point out that as stellar a performance it is, it's still pretty standard Oscar-material, i.e. mental instability, bitterness, pill-popping, etc.
It's relevant and engaging, but it's tricky to identify a point.  It is, in all ways, a downer, and yet, I found myself grinning quite a lot.