Blue Jasmine

Cate Blanchette is perfect as a very lost woman in Woody Allen's new movie.  Critics are talking about her similarity to Tennessee Wiliams' Blanche du Bois of Streetcar Named Desire and there are strong parallels: The emotionlly fragile, suddenly out of money, woman who throws herself on the kindness of her very working class sister with the equally working class boy friend and apartment.  This is Woody Allen with a more meaningful story than usual.

We get the back story of Jasmine's past life and recent emotional problems, as we watch her about to ruin, (for the second time) her sister's life. As usual in movies, it is a little too easy to meet eligible men at parties but the story has to move along.  The story is more layered than expected, there are emotional and story line bombshells dropped into the story, the final flashback is the most painful.  There is no slobby Stanley in this story; the working class people are admirable if sometimes ill mannered.  I did not expect the complexity of finding myself sympathizing with Jasmine while abhoring her values and most of her actions -- that's proof of good acting and directing.