Read Mixed User Reviews for Blue Jasmine

5

GreatMartinAug 9, 2013

Blanche DuBois comes onstage. She’s Stella’s older, single sister (early thirties). Blanche waits inside the apartment and has a shot of Stanley’s booze--the sisters reunite and Blanche reveals some bad news--they are bankrupt. She had a bitBlanche DuBois comes onstage. She’s Stella’s older, single sister (early thirties). Blanche waits inside the apartment and has a shot of Stanley’s booze--the sisters reunite and Blanche reveals some bad news--they are bankrupt. She had a bit of a break-down--Blanche is horrified that her sister is living in a dump like this one when they both come from such a wealthy, elite background. Blanche has another drink--rest assured that Blanche is either having a drink or about to have a drink at all times--Stella goes to the bathroom and Stanley enters and Blanche sees a man not good enough for her sister and too brutal for the DuBois sisters--while they chat, Blanche reveals that she was married once, but her husband died-- that night Stanley and his buddies play poker at the house. Among said buddies is Mitch, who is single.

No, you are not watching a remake of “A Streetcar Named Desire” or a filming of Cate Blanchett's Blanche, that she played on stage to resounding success. You are watching a modern Woody Allen version called “Blue Jasmine” but unfortunately Allen is not the poet and lover of words that Tennessee Williams was. Here Blanche is called Jasmine, or Jeanette, her sister Stella here called Ginger, played by Sally Hawkins, only now they are not blood sisters but both were adopted, which gives Woody Allen a chance to riff on genes! He also has a Bernie Madoff like Alec Baldwin while pointing fingers at how much did Jasmine--Ruth Madoff--know?

Now instead of one Staney we have 3: Gingers ex, Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), her current lover Chili (Bobby Cannavale) and a possible future lover Al (Louis C.K.) while Blanche/Jasmine’s gentleman caller Mitch is called Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard). Some more modern touches are using San Francisco instead of New Orleans, the guys watching a football game instead of playing poker, Jasmine popping Xanax and we see Blanche’s Belle Reeves in her New York life. Allen does stick to old blues songs playing a lot of the originals.

While all the actors acquit themselves doing excellent work it is more Cate Blanchett’s movie than theirs or Woody Allen’s. This is the closest we'll ever get to her stage portrayal of Blanche and, as of now, she is the forerunner for the Oscar’s Best Actress award.… Expand

6 of 7 users found this helpful61

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5

edebbyAug 6, 2013

People are just afraid to truly rate a Woody's film, because they're afraid of his name.
Well, I don't think the well chewed subject looked any more appealing in this film. A tiring, slow paced, and predictable drama that scored above 40People are just afraid to truly rate a Woody's film, because they're afraid of his name.
Well, I don't think the well chewed subject looked any more appealing in this film. A tiring, slow paced, and predictable drama that scored above 40 only because Blanchett's acting was so good.
I can't believe people said it's "Arguably Woody Allen's best film" when it's not even one of his top ten... baah… Expand

5 of 6 users found this helpful51

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6

TVJerryAug 19, 2013

Cate Blanchett can do no wrong. As usual, she's brilliant as a neurotic, upper crust New Yorker whose life falls apart when her husband's (Alec Baldwin) shady dealings cause their downfall. She travels all the way to San Francisco to move inCate Blanchett can do no wrong. As usual, she's brilliant as a neurotic, upper crust New Yorker whose life falls apart when her husband's (Alec Baldwin) shady dealings cause their downfall. She travels all the way to San Francisco to move in with her hard-working sister. Even with her captivating performance, watching Blanchett cope with the realities of being broke and her sister's pedestrian taste becomes laborious. As usual, director Woody Allen has filled the cast with spot-on actors (including Sally Hawkins, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard), but his script is too neurotic and unpleasant. This not even remotely a comedy, but a sad portrait of a desperate woman.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

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5

ShelbyMcShelbySep 21, 2013

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Baldwin and Blanchett are wonderful. The rest of the cast is good, too. The problem with this Woody Allen film is the incomplete story. Jasmine's exploration of life at the dentist's office, with the budding politician, her son or even her husband each ends without much discovery of something bigger than the sum of the action. She dumps the dentist, gets dumped by her husband, gets dumped by the politician... and that's kind of it. The politician dumps her simply because he finds out, in one chance bumping into a character that informs him of Jasmine's lies about her former life. That mechanism for moving forward in the story is a bit weak. There's nothing emotional for the audience to grasp onto to buy into it. It's just information. The politician could have acted any number of ways and we are non the wiser as to why his character and relationship with Jasmine isn't developed in that way. Ebert used to complain about this kind of script where characters just announce what they're feeling or going to do, rather than have it unfold as story. There are many other instances of this kind of storytelling. However, the potentials for a great Woody Allen movie are lurking throughout. Baldwin's character seems even to be more dimensional and nuanced than even Blanchett's though both have great characters to portray. I wish Allen would have dispensed with the San Francisco travelogue (yes, he's guilty of characters ending up in iconic places that seem to go against their probably natural geography... ending up in South Park near downtown, wtf) and stayed in New York to develop Baldwin's character and story in all it's complex contradictions. Instead of Blanchett telling about her embarrassment selling shows to her high society friends, it would have been more bittersweet, funny and sad to have actually seen that, rather than her and the dentist.… Expand

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

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4

csw12Jan 10, 2014

Another story that has been done time and time again with below average performances except for Cate Blanchett. Very few of the characters are likable, and seeing Jasmine's character have one mental breakdown after another becomes tiresome.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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6

lasttimeisawJan 21, 2014

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Does Cate’s have the belated Oscar’s BEST LEADING ACTRESS in her bag? For a vanity-ridden, insolvent, over-the-hill trophy wife widow who just lost her fraudulent husband (who committed suicide in the prison) and desperately looks for an eligible replacement to get her upper-class life back on track in a Woody Allen’s film, it is not congruent with Cate’s majestic poise which we all kneel over, naturally I will be head over heels if she wins, but this year, my heart goes to Dame Judi Dench in PHILOMENA (2013), how often does the Academy honor the senior leading ladies? And no one deserves more than Dench among her peers, while Cate is at her prime and tons of opportunities await ahead.

Digress back to BLUE JASMINE, Allen returns to his homeland and the film is set at San Francisco, Jasmine (Blanchett) forfeited all her properties and bank savings after the passing of her husband’s Hal (Baldwin), returns to live with her sister Ginger (Hawkins), who is a working-class divorcée with 2 children. There are clashes between Jasmine and Ginger’s fiancé Chili (Cannavale), and a past wrangle of losing Ginger and her ex-husband Augie (Clay)’s lottery money scars the harmony between the sisters too.

The bumpy road of Jasmine’s readjustment into the new life style commingles with Jasmine’s high-end good old days, which grants Blanchett a full gamut of theatrical flexibility to sculpt a rather unsympathetic character from all possible (negative) angles, her shallowness, neuroticism, maliciousness, phoniness, obnoxiousness are all over the place, especially when the revelation unfolds near the end, what’s the odds for a wealthy wife to inform on her husband after discovering his chronic out-of-wedlock affairs? Not in real life but in Allen’s wishful thinking script, Once she grabs her status, it is no way she will squander everything out of a passion of betrayal, it is something every trophy wife should have learned by heart, what’s more unconvincing is that Blanchett can never be that stupid. A paralleled subplot of Ginger’s flirtation with a better suitor vehemently hints that things are not better for those lower class dreamers, reality bites.

The non-American Blanchett and Hawkins master in their American accent, Blanchett can never disappoint us, even under the most wretched situation, she is fiery and undefeated like a lioness will never capitulate. Meanwhile I’m more complacent for Hawkins’ hard-earned Oscar nomination, what a unique character actress she is, innocuous but vibrant with driving forces. Also an unsung hero among the cast is Cannavale, juggles with the siblings as the unsophisticated blue-collar labourer, who can be so blatant to snide at Jasmine’s ruin and question her faults and so volatile when going frantic with Ginger’s lapse and totally smitten with her when she retreats back to him.

Disregarding the overstated hubbub with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951, 9/10), BLUE JASMINE is not Allen’s top-tier output, the script is far less from award-worthy and a satirical comedy, but its friendly orange tinge and eclectic jazz ditties could accompany you for a lazy high tea time with Jasmine babbling about her delusions of grandeur, life is comprised of continuous dramas, so just let’s laugh about it.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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5

EnaidFeb 17, 2014

I don't see what all the hype is about this movie. There were parts that just bored me and at times I felt lost. I think it is overrated and definitely not award material.