Blue Jasmine
2013
****
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tammy Blanchard, Alden Ehrenreich, Max Casella
Jasmine falls on hard times when her millionaire husband is jailed for financial fraud. She is forced to move in with her working-class sister, Ginger, but cannot let go of her past luxuries or illusions of grandeur. Cate Blanchett won a deserved Academy Award for her courageous and layered performance as Jasmine, an egotistical, self-deluding, and abrasive semi-alcoholic whose plight is at once thoroughly deserved and heartbreaking. Sally Hawkins is also brilliant as Ginger. This is a less comedic film than Woody Allen's recent output, but alongside Midnight in Paris, it is one of his best works of the 21st century.
