Woody Allen returns to his more typical Woody Allen films (about the study of women) instead of his recent Roman and French holiday movies. The film opens on Jasmine (Cate Blanchet) behaving like some “Real Housewife of San Francisco” at the doorstep of her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) who bags groceries for a living. The difference in their lives is immediately clear though with Jasmine broke, humiliated and homeless since her billionaire husband (Alec Baldwin) committed suicide there’s not much difference between the two siblings at the moment. And besides, the government and the lawyers took everything from Jasmine.
As a result she is forced to now hang with Ginger’s world including her boyfriend (Andrew Dice Clay) who has a few friends he’d like to fix our elegant Jasmine up with though she still emotionally resides in her delusional world of Louis Vuitton luggage and first class plane tickets, her vodka and anti-depressants at her side.
This Ruth Madoff-ish tour de force performance by Blanchett will make her a front-runner for an Oscar nomination, as a once on top-of-the-world Manhattan socialite who thought she was in control. When her one shot at new love with Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) an elegant diplomat could change it all, we begin to see that no matter what side of the tracks a woman is on, a good man is hard to find, but a woman being honest with herself is even harder. ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛