Thursday, August 22, 2013

BIG SCREEN: Blue Jasmine Revieux (Rated PG-13)

I suppose I should preface this by admitting that I was already a total jittery wreck, full of decongestant and coffee, when I arrived at the screening of Woody Allen’s latest film. I would’ve either skipped that last coffee, or maybe sucked down a Bloody Mary beforehand had I known more about the nature of Blue Jasmine. But, as per my usual pre-screening habit, I made sure not to read anything about it in advance so that I could be pleasantly surprised. 

(It has nothing to do with being lazy and unprepared. Really.)

So, the plot… Cate Blanchett plays a woman named Jasmine, and she’s really unhappy. (Get it? Blue Jasmine?) She’s a pampered Park Avenue wife who’s trying to regain her footing after her unscrupulous husband (Alec Baldwin) gets taken down by the feds, leaving her homeless and penniless. With nowhere else to turn, she moves in with her estranged, blue-collar sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in San Francisco, and thus begins her steady decline into madness.

She's much like I image Annie Hall would’ve turned out, if she’d gone on to become a shallow, soulless socialite. She’s perpetually nervous and jumpy, she talks to herself in public, and is quite fond of booze and pills. Despite feeling like I needed to breathe into a paper bag just watching her, I was willing to see where this anxiety-ridden little ride was heading at first. But I started to disconnect when I was expected to believe that a socially agile, modern woman -- who’d spearheaded multiple Manhattan charity events -- would have no idea how to operate a computer. As in, could barely turn one on. As in, she couldn’t even shop for Louis Vuitton bags on the Nieman Marcus website if her life depended on it.  And it’s the only thing keeping her from launching an interior design career, and therefore getting her life back on track.  M-kay.

What saves this movie from being totally "meh" for me is Cate Blanchett’s beautifully executed portrayal of this woman’s tragic and sloppy decline.  Impeccably dressed, but sporting perpetual mascara smudges and a Stoli buzz, she give us insight into the perspective of those wealthy women who enjoy their husbands’ ill-gotten riches, but turn a conveniently blind eye to the piracy behind the acquisition of the treasure – a la, Ruth Madoff.

Yes, this is definitely the Cate Blanchett show. But while none of the supporting characters were particularly interesting (Alec Baldwin as a morally corrupt husband? Ho-hum. What a stretch.), it was a treat to see an aging Andrew Dice Clay and Louis C.K. take on rather non-comedic roles. 

Being that I’m a big Woody Allen fan, I have certain expectations of his projects, and was pretty bummed when I realized this movie was not going to be chock full of his usual witty dialogue and playful neuroses. That, in itself, is not a crime. I guess he was going for a little social commentary and a character study, which I could appreciate, but overall, it really never hits its stride.

Bummer, indeed.

Now, where's that Xanax?