YOU LEFT ME STANDING ALONE: a review of "Blue Jasmine"

"BLUE JASMINE"
Written and Directed by Woody Allen
**** (four stars)

Now that was a knockout!

"Blue Jasmine," film #43 (!) from Writer/Director Woody Allen, is an uncharacteristically emotional powerhouse. While Allen has explored the darker sides of human nature and existence many times and I am certain he will continue to do so in the future, it is rare to find him approaching an arena that could be described as "brutal."

Yes, with films like "Crimes And Misdemeanors" (1989) and especially, the England set class conscious, almost nihilistic thrillers "Match Point" (2005) and "Cassandra's Dream" (2007) and the underrated "You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger" (2010), Allen has created an uncompromising vision of seemingly upstanding people making devastating life choices, and sometimes without any sense of retribution, while always remaining non-judgmental towards his subject matter and characters. These films all have their levels of internal disturbance but Allen, due to his style, never hits with blunt force. This is by no means a criticism. It is just an observation. But with "Blue Jasmine," Woody Allen, like a trained boxer, hits hard and fast and repeatedly so, making this his most volatile film since the bracing and excellent "Husbands And Wives" (1992). For those of you out there who are just craving an adult film about adults told in a strikingly adult manner, this is the one to head out and see post haste!

The plot of "Blue Jasmine" is perfectly simple. Cate Blanchett stars as Jasmine Francis, the wife of multi-millionaire Hal Francis (a perfectly slick and smug Alec Baldwin), who finds her entire life and existence turned upside down when Hal is arrested, indicted and imprisoned for seismic financial fraud. Now essentially penniless, Jasmine relocates herself to San Francisco and into the home of her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), as she tries to make stock of her life and move forwards.

What makes "Blue Jasmine" so complex is not only the non-linear fashion Allen lays out all of the pieces of his story but mostly through the extreme emotional turbulence that Jasmine, and all of the supporting characters are enduring. Allen gives us a front row seat to sibling rivalry that stems from which sister received the "better genes" all the way through to issues of economic class status, as well as unflinching explorations of the underbelly of adult relationships, crippling regrets with life choices gone wrong, the secrets and lies we tell to others and ourselves, and primarily, the difficulty with shedding the scars and damaged skins of our pasts.

Where "Blue Jasmine" unflinchingly opens wounds is through Allen's pin-point examination of Jasmine's increasing mental illness as she suffers from severe anxiety, traumas, nightmares, the ghosts of once cherished memories, a series of breakdowns that finds her publicly speaking out loud to no one and how she constantly attempts to control or drown her demons with an addiction to cocktail medications and copious amounts of alcohol. There is essentially no scene in the entire film where Jasmine is sober and it is telling that we may be glimpsing the point in her life when she cannot even remember those days herself.

Dear readers, I cannot express enough to you how surprised I was to find myself so emotionally uncomfortable within the entirety of "Blue Jasmine." While a drama, Allen's satirical knives are freshly sharpened and sting every time he goes for an impact. The comedic areas of the film, most notably Jasmine's complete disdain with Ginger's home, lifestyle, ex-husband (beautifully played by none other than Andrew Dice Clay), current boyfriend Chili (enthusiastically played by Bobby Cannavale) and her attempts to better her life through taking computer classes and performing "menial labor" in a dentist's office, are all piercingly observed and filled with that social squeamishness that is ripe for comedy but so difficult to attain without becoming unwatchable. Yet Woody Allen maintains that fine line masterfully as his characters never descend into caricatures and again, he remains non-judgmental throughout, allowing the audience to make any connections and observations without any storytelling interference from him.

While the film's comedy is defiantly uncomfortable, it is through the film's larger, darker themes when "Blue Jasmine" becomes disturbingly devastating. Certainly Allen is making a grim statement about our society's over-reliance and addiction to alcohol as seemingly every character within the film at some point or another is numbing some pain, transgression or demon by whatever is filling their respective glasses and bottles. but furthermore, "Blue Jasmine" is an unnerving, and even distressing piece of work that I found to have the threat of violence and destruction hovering over the proceedings like the darkest of clouds ready to explode into a thunderstorm. On a physical level, there are mentions during the film to abusive men, and Jasmine herself is nearly raped in one sequence. But it is on the psychological level where 'Blue Jasmine" hits hardest as Woody Allen's depiction of debilitating mental illness is shattering to view and for that, we must send enormous thanks to Cate Blanchett.

As Jasmine, Cate Blanchett is a steamroller and this performance definitely deserves and Academy Award nomination as she has given us the fullness of a life of regrets, hoped for redemption, and furious indignity at the life she feels is unworthy of her. It is also a performance where an actress as gorgeous as Blanchett has performed without a stitch of physical vanity as she looks, frankly, horrible throughout the film as her face and figure are blotchy, haggard, sweaty, disheveled and made even moreso by her pathetic, vanity fueled attempts to remain the smashing high society woman she once was through the finest of clothing and her eloquent diction.

Beyond the visual, Blanchett gets completely under the skin of Jasmine, a woman who has held so many facades and has attempted to publicly re-invent herself so many times that she has quite possibly forgotten who she is, a dilemma that informs every single relationship she has within the film, from her turbulent rivalry with her sister to even a future with a potential new suitor (Peter Sarsgaard). Blanchett nails every single moment and curve ball that she is delivered with pitch perfect quality and an unhinged stature that you feel will crumble apart at any given moment. And somehow, she makes the once fond memory of the classic song "Blue Moon" feel at first like an elegy and finally, a life tragedy. This is high wire acting, the kind of which reminded me a little bit of Natalie Portman's work in Director Darren Aronosky's "Black Swan" (2010) and also Ellen Burstyn's nightmarish performance in Aronofsky's "Requiem For A Dream" (2000). The force with which Cate Blanchett delivers is superbly overwhelming.

As one would expect from any Woody Allen film, the performances by the entire cast are first rate as it his unparalleled screenwriting, which again shows how and why he is truly one of the best we have ever been graced to have. Of course, with someone as prolific as Allen, who is still cranking out film after film almost annually, not every work can be a gold standard. But, with "Blue Jasmine," we have his finest, and his dark underbelly to the magnificent "Midnight In Paris" (2011). While that film made your spirit soar with flights of fancy, and dreams of nostalgia (and travel), "Blue Jasmine" leaves harsh bruises as Woody Allen's theater of the mind is an unstable, tempestuous, roaring place to be.

And I think that it is also one of the very best films I have seen in 2013.