Blue Jasmine is a film I've revisited several times since it was released in 2013, easily more than any film Woody has made since 1999. Rewatching it tonight again, and in chronological context, it holds up as one of his very best work. For some it might be be fashionable to say so, but this will get into the Top 10 for me. And despite the many issues I have with his 2000-present output sans a handful of good / great / excellent films in that time frame, this really is a great work by a great artist who finally was spurred by actual events in his life to create a layered and complex portrait of emotional trauma. This could've been made by Woody in the late 80's / early 90's quite easily. And that's a very big compliment considering.
Cate Blanchett's acting in this has been very deservedly praised - what doesn't get mentioned often enough is that she did by doing a spot on impression of Judy Davis' Sally character from
Husbands & Wives (and, to a slightly lesser degree, Judy Davis' other roles in Woody films - Alice, Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity). Had this been shot 10 or 15 years earlier, it definitely would've starred Judy Davis in the lead role. It is especially prominent in her speech affectations (for one clear example in the diner scene where she is babysitting her sister's children and gives an extensive rambling monologue to them about Hal). Blanchett adds to the character as needed and perfectly lands the moments where Jasmine can seemingly internally hear her own mind sabotaging itself. The scene where she meets Dwight and they talk alone on the patio and begin to establish a rapport, he asks her about her past and she pauses before starting a lie that she knows will eventually sabotage anything that might come of this. She plays that beat perfectly as the camera holds on a close up waiting for her to try and say the right thing, just enough time for the viewer to realize that she is thinking of trying to hide it, then knowing that's exactly what she's thinking of doing and then that's exactly when she comes in with the lie. Small moment but very key in the film and for her character. Perfect.
Blanchett's performance overshadows other great turns by Sally Hawkins (returning to a Woody film after being, for me, the breath of fresh air in Cassandra's Dream in her small but authentic role). Woody (and the many acting talents who work with him) always note that his direction is always to change his dialogue as needed for a character or scene to make it more comfortable. Aside from Scarlett Johansson, I haven't read of too many actors who said that they did change some of his lines in the past two decades (and, clearly, a lot more of them should've taken that liberty), but I would venture to guess that Hawkins has (her little muttering asides here and there are a nice touch). Her story worked well as playing on the same theme underneath Jasmine's own larger story of delusion on a bigger scale with higher stakes - with Ginger, you believed that she had met someone worthwhile and how, despite denying before that Chili wasn't a bad choice at all, she was quick to throw it all away at the first offer of a seemingly better prospect. Ginger had accused her sister of looking the other way if it was something she didn't want to believe and turning her back on reality and the people that mattered around her - and yet she did the same, as most / many people would do / have done. She settles back with Chili and suddenly she rewrites the truth of their relationship again. She does a great job in her role and gives a sincere turn as a kind hearted, trusting guileless woman trying to better herself in a modest way. Her dramatic scene is at a dock with a flip phone - and it is beautifully and convincingly done. Woody's films have (or had) been celebrated for writing great female characters (although some examples noted here in the past two decades have prompted some critics to suggest otherwise) and this is a prime example of why he deserves that credit.
Alec Baldwin is also excellent in his well cast role. Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Cannavale, Louis CK both turn in good performances as different types of sketchy people (although a nice turn on how the Al character appears nice and caring and a character like Augie comes off as a rough bad choice, but Augie turns out to be a much better man than Al is. Michael Stuhlbarg's dark comic relief as the creepy predatory dentist Dr Flicker is fantastic and Stuhlbarg being cast as a lead in a future Woody comedy of some kind is tops on my wish list (in fact, let's have an entire film about Dr Flicker's dentistry, please?
)
Production wise, stedi-cam replaces the usual Woody Allen dolly / pan / tilt / zoom style to shoot the long master shots (which there are fewer of here, lots of over the shoulder cutaways, but successful). Javier Aguirresarobe's photography is an improvement on his previous collaboration with Woody on
Vicky Cristina Barcelona but I can't help but wish Khondji shot this instead. But maybe some of the acting performances were constructed in editing (which was also some of Lepselter's best work so far)?
While there are some small details that this is still an early draft of some kind (probably the most notable being the fact that Augie and Ginger's money came from lottery winnings... that could've been worked out differently that added more dramatic weight to the situation, but it gets a pass because it doesn't weigh it down too much), the many layers of writing give this far more depth than much of what he'd written since the 1990's. After reading him say so many times the Eric Lax
Conversations... book that each drama he'd made could be written better by him today because he would know how to do it better... and then seeing him doing
Cassandra's Dream... it is nice to see him take his own advice for once. Some of the funny (albeit often very darkly so) moments really helped. It is partially structured around
A Streetcar Named Desire (the odd but fitting music selections are heavy on the New Orleans material, more so than most any other Woody film, a clear cue for me that he was acknowledging the
Streetcar influence to anyone sharp enough to catch it) - which, coincidentally, often helps Woody when he uses a film or book that influenced him to structure his story around, like
An American Tragedy did for
Match Point eight years prior. Woody's usual struggles for writing for the 21st Century working class characters (which he has an exceptionally hard time relating to, usually depicting them with either pity or contempt or a mix of both in the 2000's / 2010's) still shows up but not as pronounced (Woody's idea of workaday San Francisco is... New Jersey apparently? Allegedly this was written into the film as there was a standing offer to finance production if he shot a film in SanFran and he was self financing production at the time so... Jersey clearly got written into being SanFran). Ginger's apartment is amazing - yet we are introduced to it as Jasmine walks in and a slow pan around the room is to inform us that this is supposed to be some kind of dump (like in
Whatever Works where everyone keeps remarking about the "hole" of an apartment Boris lives in that is actually really awesome - thank you, production designer Santo Loquasto - and in Manhattan would cost a fortune to keep). And Ginger holds that place down and raising two kids part time while bagging groceries for a living? Maybe in 1973 but not in 2013.
But the other written layer(s) are that there is *extensive* personal stuff here. Pardon me while I go down a rabbit hole in my review here but it shouts out at me so many times throughout this film and, watching all of his films in chronological order, that shouting was extra loud as you had to look very carefully to find "clues" of his personal writing in his films from the 2000-2012 period, it made this one very, very pronounced as a result. Some critics did pick up on the comparison of Jasmine as Mia Farrow in her reaction to finding out about Woody and Soon Yi's affair - the fact that he stages that scene of confronting her husband about an affair he has been having with a "teenager" - who then volleys back that not only does he admit the affair but he's in love with her... *and* is "making plans for the future" with her... and all of this taking place in the film in front of the mantle is quite something (it is, in Woody's actual home, where Mia found the polaroids. And for anyone reading this that doesn't know, Soon Yi was 21 when the affair started, not a teenager, but still...). Hal flirts with (and gets permission to from Jasmine) take his young gym trainer to a baseball game (Woody and Soon Yi went to a basketball game at Mia's own suggestion). Jasmine confronts Hal about being seen holding hands in public, which Hal retorts "if I was gonna do that, would I do it in public?" (Woody himself *was* caught doing that in public in his "front row seats", all the time Mia turning a blind eye to what was happening and what their relationship had long become). The lawyer character Hal has an affair is asian (who is just dropped in there for a brief introductory scene and absolutely nothing else and no other reason). And while clearly the Jasmine character's oscillating descent in narcissistic, delusional, self destructive, neurotic madness definitely has some root in Mia, interestingly at the same time that character also at times represents **Woody** himself and his own (extensive) denial and private regrets. In interviews for the film Woody admitted it was based on a woman who "lost it all" and had a mental breakdown that Soon Yi and Woody knew. There aren't too many times Woody has admitted one of his scripts is based on someone he know / knew in his life, so that's mighty telling.
Add on top of all of the above (and more) that you could *also* see this as partially being in part about his former producer / backer Jean Doumanian and her fall from grace / wealth and totally destroyed her friendship and working relationship with Woody by cheating him out of millions, forcing him to sue (and, perhaps most importantly, gradually firing everyone of his core production crew that he worked with throughout his prime years in the late 70's through the early 90's). Woody's own personal extensive delusion and denial about relationships is well represented in Jasmine's eagerness to "look the other way" - in addition to Woody refusing to admit his relationship with Mia was over, he kept digging himself deeper and deeper into it in the late 80's for no other reason than to preserve routine in his life, turning a blind eye to Mia's parenting, psychological problems, etc. And it blew up in one of the most spectacular tabloid explosions of the late 20th Century. And you'd think he'd learn from that but he did the exact same thing with his business relationship with Jean Doumanian in the years immediately following the Mia Breakup - turning a willful blind eye to her destroying his working relationships, shady financial dealings, bad advice, personal manipulation, etc etc etc all in the name of preserving a routine without having to deal with the ugly reality and coming and inevitable consequences.
Once again the theme of the estranged son returns as Jasmine loses Hal's son Danny's trust and love after Hal's arrest. Danny later admits he later learned how "it all really happened" (which is immediately followed by the flashback to the confrontation about the affair with the teenager in front of the mantle) and has totally disowned Jasmine forever in his life. The stunning devastation of Jasmine tells us plenty that, even at the point where his own son Satchel/Ronan had become a public figure (and used that opportunity to throw digital and print darts at his father on his mother's behalf) that was openly disdainful of Woody, he shows great remorse and regret for how it played out and what he lost. To go further down the autobiographical rabbit hole, I can't also help but wonder if there is a possibility that this *is* an old script he wrote back in the 90's after Husbands & Wives / MiaBreakup and *was* written for Judy Davis to star in... and he didn't shoot it because it was all too much for the time and just updated some of the mechanics of it to hang the breakdown of her marriage around the 2008 Great Recession financial meltdown. It is the first film to really and truly deal with that situation head on - with possibly the exception of
Deconstructing Harry (a film made to skewer Philip Roth, whom Mia was dating at the time, but never gets too deep or direct into the Mia Breakup Fallout). A long shot theory perhaps but there is a helluva lot going on here in this film.
Recalling
Mighty Aphrodite's theme of adopted children and what personal attributes are gained genetically, there is also quite a bit going on in this film about adopted children. Jasmine and Ginger are sisters who were both adopted and both talk about each other's genetic heritage and wondering who got the "best genes" (perhaps suggesting that Jasmine is unknowingly genetically predisposed to mental health issues without knowing it in the process). Hal's son is also adopted and uses that as an emotional weapon against Jasmine (and his father upon his arrest and public humiliation). A lot of parallels to be drawn there with regards to the Farrow family(s).
The clear autobiographical elements of this film, and the obvious basis of making a characterization of Mia's mental state seemed to have also prompted the Farrow family to launch a social media campaign against him. The Farrows only seem to make noise when Woody's films get good reviews and press, but this one was even more so - the ridiculous Orth "follow up" Vanity Fair article (in which Mia made the ludicrous lie of Ronan possibly being Sinatra's son coupled with Dylan reasserting her allegation) then with synchronized attack tweets by Ronan and Mia on the night of Woody getting honoured by the Golden Globes). Allegedly / apparently / supposedly, *before* this film was made Woody and Soon Yi had talked with Mia on the phone after Lark Previn's death in 2008. They called to express their condolences and supposedly were able to have a cordial but brief conversation. And not too long afterwards... this film gets made, as though the briefest contact with Mia spurned her usual reaction and nothing much had truly changed (?). You can't help but wonder if this, with those themes and the fact that it got rave reviews to boot, stung a little bit harder for them.
Sadly, that's partly where the fuel to make a much brighter fire comes from - he finally wrote a personal story again and was addressing some issues that mattered to him in his life. It had been sometime since we'd seen much of that - likely
Celebrity being the last film that one could argue was an overtly "personal film" (
Deconstructing Harry being the last successful one, IMO) from him (with smaller bits tossed around much more minor stories throughout the subsequent years). All of this makes for a great film with a LOT of motivation behind the writing, something severely lacking in most films from the DreamWorks period onwards. Also: I hope there is an award for longest posting in these forums?