The stellar Cate Blanchette completely fails in this film. Woody Allen forgot to write her character. For one thing, Jasmine has no backstory, except the fact that she was adopted, and dropped out of college to marry the wealthy con artist Hal. Is her adoption essential to her personality? Do adoptees become sociopaths? (Jasmine’s sister — also adopted — is not a compulsive liar, but she ran away young from their adoptive home.) Is Blue Jasmine a manifesto against adoption? (During my 15-year addiction to Howard Stern, I was impressed by his heated attacks on the practice of adopting children. At the very least, Howard convinced me that this process is perilous.) Is it meaningful that Jasmine studied anthropology before leaving college? Is she, in some metaphoric sense, an anthropologist? Isn’t everyone who rockets from one social class to another inevitably a scholar of human culture?
What about all the references to “A Streetcar Named Desire”? Are they relevant to the movie, or just an easy structure for the plot? Blue Jasmine is like a madman shooting randomly in a train station. Woody Allen attacks the upper middle class, Jews, dentists, sensitive Filipino supermarket managers, effete diplomats, sound engineers, yoga instructors. But Blue Jasmine can’t be a tragedy, because the hero lacks nobility. Jasmine doesn’t have a tragic flaw; she IS a tragic flaw.
When Hal leaves Jasmine for an au-pair, is Woody ridiculing himself? (Remember, Woody essentially married his daughter. Wait a minute, his girlfriend’s ADOPTED daughter!)
I suspect Woody directs these movies just to stay busy, and to make a few bucks. No one would have bet on he and Bob Dylan sharing similar fates, but they do. Dylan tours constantly, though his voice is shot. Why? He’s an icon, and also utterly irrelevant. (Perhaps an icon MUST be utterly irrelevant.) Woody is 78, Dylan 72. They are like those Jewish lawyers who work into their 90s. What else can they do? Stay home and play pinochle?
It’s all our fault. We, the audience, have told Woody and Bob they are geniuses for so long that we’ve convinced them. Dylan steals lines from the poet of the Confederacy, Henry Timrod; Woody cribs from Tennessee Williams. Their late works leave us unsatisfied but inwardly pleased. We have squeezed everything out of them, and only the pulp remains.
This article appears in December 2013.
I would go into detail over how your points are completely exaggerated and frankly, childish. You explicitly compare Woody Allen to a madman shooting up a train station, which although elicits a vivid and visceral response from the reader, is the kind of tacky and thoughtless analogy one would read in a middle school book report.
More importantly, you take a naive outlook of the movie and miss the overall narrative: Allen isn’t “attacking” Jews, middle class, or any of the sort. They’re characters, not stereotypes. By demographying them, you are the one who is actually reducing them to base, one dimensional caricatures and ridiculing them.
Also, lay OFF the inclination to WRITE in a way that EMPHASIZES certain WORDS because it REALLY makes you seem like you’re JUST writing from the PERSPECTIVE of a 14 YEAR old girl.
I don’t understand if you’re a troll or if this is a serious review. If serious, take some time to think more deeply about your writing instead of provrastinating until an article is due and trying to create drama where there really isn’t.
Blue Jasmine may not be the best Woody Allen movie, but is well written, even if it sometimes feels rushed. The comment above is right on the point why you missed completely the mark in reviewing the movie. It is not about stereotypes, it is about characters. You mention that many things were not necessary for the movie. That proves you don’t understand screenwriting. Not everything is necessary in a movie. Sometimes they are there just to add levels to the story. Not everything should de functional, like a left key in a Breaking Bad-type series.
Adoption is a big background to her story. It is important but not decisive to the way she acts. Her sister is adopted too, and she had a completely different approach to life. Remember?
And then you compare Woody Allen to Bob Dylan, as examples of irrelevant artists today. We have many icons that are really irrelevant today. I could mention The Rolling Stones, The Who, Coppola… But not Allen and Dylan. They made some of their best jobs in recent years. Midnight in Paris, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Match Point, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times and Tempest are here to prove it. How can artists that constantly are making movies and albums who are usually found on best of the year lists collected by important magazines are irrelevant? Maybe it is not for your taste. But you can’t say they are irrelevant. Or do you measure relevance by the Lady Gaga level of media exposure?
To Imadeanaccount…
I love your account name. And Sparrow is an actual writer, with quite an illustrious publication history. I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in.