How do we identify ourselves? That's a round-about sensation I felt whilst watching Blue Jasmine. Here is a woman who has literally no idea who she is deep down. On the surface she is a beautiful sophisticated lady with impeccable taste and great social skills. As the film unfurls around you, you realise this is a broken character with no direction or comprehension of her life, she clearly has had a mental breakdown since her whole existence was torn to shreds and she is popping pills and drinking Stolichnaya vodka (classy people vodka) obsessively just to keep herself as calm as possible whilst her psyche bursts at the seams bleeding out by ranting in public.
To be honest, my immediate reaction to this film was - 'White people problems, rich people - boo hoo.' To be fair Woody Allen provides a different speed of film nowadays, he is much more interested in white people with money having various types of mental/relationship breakdowns (Midnight in Paris I believe follows this rule, as does any film he has made in the past ten years.) To be honest, there isn't much to comment on.
Is the film well written? Yes. Is it well acted? Cate Blanchett is incredible and the supporting cast is pretty damn good, Sally Hawkins specifically playing her adoptive sister, this woman was perfection in Happy Go Lucky (an oddly optimistic Mike Leigh film,) and here she is just a delight. Also Louis CK makes a sort of cameo appearance in the film, he's only in about two or three scenes and he's used sparingly doing some 'real' acting which means he has very little chance to have any personality or be remotely engaging as a character which is a shame because I really wanted him to be awesome. Peter Sarsgaard also appears playing a rich pompous chap and does so with relative ease and looks dashing in fine clothing, so there is that to be rather pleased about. Alec Baldwin always plays corrupt, philandering dastardly husband without breaking a sweat.
I must reiterate how incredible Cate Blanchett is in this film, she manages to play the middle-aged ignorant woman so well as her life falls apart at the seams. At the end of the day she has no true identity beyond her rich husband, her fine clothes and her money, beyond that she has 'taste' I guess, which means she's highly judgemental of all around her and ignorant of anyone/thing which might prevent her from living her fabulous distracting lifestyle. Because nothing else really matters as long as you are beautiful, healthy and cultured. Deep down though this woman is spiteful and extremely unsympathetic as she manages to push and force everyone around her away with little regard for how it may affect her, she's vicious immature and highly strung. Yet so wrapped up in herself she doesn't make any effort to be any more than the beautiful sophisticated image of a woman she expects the world to see her as. The tragedy of Blue Jasmine is that Jasmine (or Janine? It's not her real name anyways...) has no idea who she truly is because everyone else has projected what they see back onto her, they see a beautiful woman, a well dressed impeccably groomed doll, and they plant in her expectations that is all she ever has to be, because let's face it, with her good looks and charm she managed to manifest a lavish lifestyle with very little effort at all. When this all falls apart she spends the film desperately trying to grasp at what she should be, what she's expected to be, rather than what she wants to be because she has no idea what that truly is. It works for a time but it's a flimsy foundation to rebuild a life on and clearly what is underneath is rotten and unstable anyways. Blanchett plays the character with utter conviction and manages to occasionally show flashes of humanity as Jasmine grapples with her lack of identity and the tattered remains of her existence. It's an interesting character piece and her performance drew me into my clearly in depth thoughts about identity.
As a film, it is edited to gradually reveal the position the main characters have found themselves in, jumping between past and present, giving snippets of interesting details as we go. It's a relatively short film and it's effectively done without overstaying it's welcome. I've heard the critics adore the film, but I have yet to read too much into it. I felt it was important to get my feelings out before I let the chatter of others influence my mind. It's a film about identity as much as anything and how you can only get so far in life on assumptions before you lose yourself. At least that's what I gleaned from it. I feel like my argument would be greatly backed up by Sally Hawkins character, Jasmine's sister, who always knew she was second best, was a normal girl without any thrilling future. She dabbles in a different lifestyle and realises who she is and what she wants and is happy and comfortable with her existence in the end. I think it's an interesting film and it definitely made me think; for that I am glad.
