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| Cate Blanchett in the closing scene of Blue Jasmine |
Woody Allen's latest film creation, as both writer and director, is both dramatically impressive if not also a tad depressing with its' focus on denial, self-absorption and desperation within relationships. Cate Blanchett is cast in the lead role of Jasmine French seemingly a socialite from New York who has been forced to live with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and her two boys in San Francisco following the arrest, jailing and suicide of her husband (Alec Baldwin) for corporate fraud. Blanchett's character is an alcohol-dependent, Xanax reliant woman who finds it difficult to accept her changed circumstances and conveys her dissatisfaction of her own and her sister's lives at almost any given moment. All men are seen as 'losers' and Jasmine is desperate to find a new way to make herself substantial again whilst bemoaning the fact she never finished her college degree. The storyline for the film is reputed to pay homage in basic structure to Tennessee Williams' play ' A Streetcar Named Desire' and Allen has drawn in many other themes such as the excesses of the financial markets, a Bernie Madoff/Gordon Gekko character and the impact of larger financial crises on ordinary people.
As with many Allen films, Blue Jasmine has little time for men - they are portrayed as shallow, deceitful, philandering and needful of marriage with a woman to validate their existence. Whilst this observational perspective has a veneer of truth, Allen's own complex personal life would equally draw just as critical a view and indeed has Allen's own life really imitated his art ?
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