New York was the city that once promised the keys to a new life as Sinatra once proclaimed "" If I can make it there..I'll make it anywhere" Fast forward to today to bear witness to a gentler and safer city, one where even Brooklyn has fallen into the fold. A gentrified play land for the uber wealthy, who's latest cultural achievement is the cronut and who openly wheel and deal on Wall Street in the generic office towers manning the machines that make hundreds of micro trades per seconds. All in the name of profit.
With a story line that pulls right off the heels of the Bernie Madoff Ponzie scheme, one that pilfered $18 billion off thousands of duped investors, who sadly at times fought over one another to get into Madoff's elite action.
The film begins with what I do believe is Woody's first foray into CGI, as a artificial looking jet liner streams west above dreamy white puffy sun soaked clouds with our protagonist Jasmine Blue aboard.
What is the greatest short coming of this film begins right off as Jasmine, the compelling Cate Blanchette, painfully demonstrates that she is the worst airline passenger that never stops talking and to boot she is a drinker too. This scene is funny but also reveals the greatest weakness of the film, we do not talk to each other anymore...we only talk at each other. For Woody Allen fans this is a fate worse than death.
Photo courtesy of Indiewire
Jasmine is heading to the other wickedest city in the world... San Francisco, another city that is not what it once was; to crash with here estranged sister Ginger, played affectionately by Sally Hawkins. Jasmine's life has been turned inside out and upside down after her husband Hal, the miscast Alex Baldwin, illegal business dealings finally catch up with him, which result in the lifestyle of this excessively rich couple coming to an abrupt and crashing halt as the government takes everything and sends Hal up the river.
Once at Ginger's cramped apartment Jasmine has her first "social" outing. One that is part blind date and rude awakening of how the other 99% live. As Jasmine continues to pound down one Stolie martinis after another she is berated with question by Ginger's fiance Chili, played old school by Bobby Cannavale, who presses her on how she will now "make it" without her millions. It is here the delusions that mirror the archetypal Blanch DuBois begin to show them self. Jasmine barely emotionally survives this prodding from Chili, but once again the dialogue which could have occurred never occurs. Chili basically talks at Jasmine and there is nothing clever or revealing that comes out of this exchange. Jasmine was more than capable to go toe to toe with Chili but instead she just surrenders in her martini glass.Should we pity Jasmine or hate her? The one good thing that comes of this is Jasmine get a job tip from her would be blind date.
In a series of flash backs Allen sets the story in motion as we see Jasmine and Hall blossom in their life together as theirs becomes a magical and disconnected one from most people's reality. Allen does not make serious commentary about this it is only part of Jasmine story until Ginger and her former husband Augie, played convincingly by Andrew Dice Clay, come to New York to visit. It is in this scene that you see the disdain and blatant self absorption that both Jasmine and Hal display as they are the world's most selfish hosts.
Just by chance in the limo provided by the "generous" Hal to secretly give Jasmine the day off to playing host for Ginger and Augie's Manhattan tourist adventure, Ginger witness' infidelities by Hal outside a restaurant with another woman. She sadly does not tell Jasmine this fact but does confide in a drunk Augie who agrees she should do the right thing.
Tragically that does not occur and the next day while in the Hamptons Augie commits his recent lottery winning to Hal's winning investment strategy.
For all who are touched and seduced by Hal and Jasmine's life only bitter heartbreak will follow.
Cate Blanchette carries this movie but sadly she carries it alone. It is an Oscar worthy performance by her a portrayal that will have you gradually becoming more emphatic to her delusions, whether real or constructed, and hoping that some semblance of normalcy will await her. Tragically that is not to be.
Unfilled dreams are often the a hallmark of a Woody film and there is plenty of misery to go around in this one. The only justice in the film is a cruel twist of fate as Augie delivers the crushing and appropriate blow to a broad sided Jasmine.
Watching this film you are left feeling incomplete. Not by the fall of the once vibrant and sophisticated Jasmine or even by the heartbroken and lost Jasmine but by the complete lack of any compelling, quick witted and biting Woody dialogue between characters. That is what is sorely missing in this film. The dialogue that opens,expands, and challenges emotions as well as the story arch of the characters involved who need to intellectually fence with each other, regardless of what level they may be on, to claim there own ground. Too many of the players performance's are squander to the point of being cliche. Sadly Ginger role is most evident of this as she never comes into her own or holds Jasmine accountable for her role in her fate and unhappiness.
Is it a sign of the times? A painful fact that we just don't have the time, or the patients, anymore to expect movie makers to write characters beyond the obvious? When it comes to Woody Allen movies we do expect that and more.
Woody's love affair with the New York skyline is sadly over too as their are no panoramic full screen views of this changed city. Is that deliberate? Is this city no longer a place of bewilderment? Maybe. Well at least we got a couple good shots of the Golden Gate.
Photos courtesy of World's Best Places
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