HOLLYWOOD—Woody Allen does it again with his new film “Blue Jasmine” that opened in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York on July 26. “Blue Jasmine” stars Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, a middle-aged Park Avenue socialite who has her world turned upside down. She decides to pack her Louis Vuitton bags and heads west to San Francisco.
She is left dazed and confused after the taxi driver drops her off at her sister Ginger’s apartment atop of a Mexican restaurant. She is forced to reunite with her adopted sister from childhood (Sally Hawkins), a free spirit who lives happily with two troublemaker boys and bagging groceries. Ginger often jokes that her sister formerly known as Janette, now Jasmine, a white golden blonde inherited “the good genes.”
As Jasmine puts her life back together, she learns the worth of a dollar having never worked a day in her life by getting a job. By day, she answers calls and pencils in appointments as a dental receptionist, by night she takes computer classes with her dream of being an interior designer. Things for Jasmine begin to look up when she meets a would-be politician named Dwight, who happens to be just her type, a wealthy man with a house looking out at San Francisco Bay.
It looks like Jasmine has it all once again until she meets Auggie, her sister Ginger’s ex-husband. This encounter forces Jasmine to recount her past with her ex-husband’s suicide in prison and his investment with Hal that lost him $200,000, and to her stepson Danny who lives in Oakland.
“Some people don’t put things behind so easily,” said Auggie. Jasmine with no fiancé, no family left ,walks to the park, hair wet from having left her sister’s house after a shower still sporting her head to toe Park Avenue look. She sits on a bench next to a woman and talks to herself thinking about the lyrics to Blue Moon which was the song she first heard when she met her husband.
Throughout the story, Jasmine has these flashbacks where she tries to escape her present, but at the same time her past. Any word or phrases takes her back to her sister’s tiny apartment to the day she gets her apartment with Hal overlooking Central Park, to her days of hosting her grand dinner parties, to basking under the Hampton sun.
Allen likes to play with the audience’s mind seeing the before and after life of Jasmine as a pill popping, alcoholic, short-tempered, Miss Perfect while clutching a Hermes bag at her side. A symptom of her psychological state frequently peeks through with moments of talking to herself and her short-temperedness, and anxiety attacks, as she uses Xanax to ease her pain.
Allen writes the riches the rags story with Cate Blanchett delivering an Oscar-worthy performance already getting buzz. It was the first time Cate worked with Allen and took the call right away to be in his film. “Blue Jasmine” is currently playing in select theaters at the Hollywood Arclight and will soon be playing in nationwide theaters.
By Alice Perez
