Well, not in Saskatchewan. But you know what I mean. And I saw one at the Southland last night — Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. It was pretty damn good. Blue Jasmine is a comedy one watches without laughing, slack-jawed and horrified at characters who careen off one other like brain-damaged chimpanzees driven mad from medical experimentation.
The film’s about Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), the ex-wife of a multimillionaire sociopath whose shady business dealings end with his dramatic arrest by FBI agents in the middle of New York. After some slow-to-be-revealed turmoil (understatement), a broke Jasmine flies to San Francisco to live with her blue collar sister, who knows a lot of decent but socially unskilled men. Things proceed efficiently downhill from there.
Jorge, whose opinions about movies actually matter, reviewed it recently and here’s what he had to say:
I can’t say enough about Cate Blanchett’s work. We get to meet her character in better days via flashbacks. Hints of her delicate mental state are dropped subtly, anticipating the full-on breakdown ahead. After being missing from the scene for a couple of years, Blanchett returns in fine form. She is clearly the frontrunner for next year’s Academy Awards.
Darn tootin’. My only quibble is Jorge’s insistence that this is a drama. Nope. Blue Jasmine a horror-comedy in which deranged characters are clinically vivisected live onscreen for our entertainment. Nabokov fans should love this one. It’s fantastic, twisted and and laugh-uncomfortably-on-the-inside funny. Go see it.