Blue Jasmine
A 1-percenter's downward spiral
Directed by Woody Allen
(PG-13)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Blue Jasmine is “the strongest, most resonant movie Woody Allen has made in years,” said David Denby in The New Yorker. A story about a wealthy woman brought low by the downfall of her financier husband, it features a “mesmerizing” performance by Cate Blanchett while making dark comedy of the gulf that’s opened between America’s upper and lower classes. But it’s hard to view Blue Jasmine as anything more than “a vaguely topical reboot” of A Streetcar Named Desire, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. Blanchett’s Jasmine counts “among the most unpleasant of all Allen protagonists”—a snob who drowns her woes with alcohol and pills. When she moves to San Francisco to live with her working-class sister (Sally Hawkins), we watch with “horrified pity” as her insults and lies speed her free fall from queen bee to wretch. But the miracle of this film is how it encourages us to deplore Jasmine before we embrace her as “a tragic fool,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. Like the rest of us, she’s a creature of her pretenses. And she’s turned hers into a trap.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Consumers fed up with food costs ditch big brands'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
What would it be like in jail for Trump if he's convicted?
Today's Big Question The Secret Service has begun grappling with how to protect a former president behind bars
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
How much can you save shopping secondhand?
The Explainer Many Americans are buying pre-owned items to counteract the effects of inflation
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published