Review of Blue Jasmine (2013) by Thegodfatherson — 22 Aug 2013

Allen has been cruel to many other of his characters, most memorably in Crimes and Misdemeanors, and he’s also left many other characters as prisoners of their own stasis and delusions—The Purple Rose of Cairo and Vicky Cristina Barcelona come to mind.

But I’m not sure any of those other characters were quite as fully realized as Jasmine, which is naturally tribute to Allen and Blanchett and their alchemy together, but it also made the film, for me, hard to take.

(A minority opinion given the reviews I’ve read.) I saw sadism in it, beyond the usual misanthropy. (Love misanthropy!) Or, put another way, Blue Jasmine feels like tragedy without catharsis—an interesting thing to pull off, but not particularly moving or maybe even admirable.