TheRetroCritic

One more year, one more Woody Allen film. After the success of classy but light-hearted effort Midnight In Paris and the uneven but mostly enjoyable To Rome With Love , comes Allen's latest Blue Jasmine and, this time around, things are slightly different. For one thing, this isn't one of those "holiday" movies where the setting is the main character and everyone else is kind of a walking and talking accessory. Here, we have a more focused character piece that's really about the main character and what impact her selfish actions are having on the people around her. Cate Blanchett plays the titular Jasmine as we find her post-nervous breakdown having to go and live with her working class half-sister (Sally Hawkins) after her rich but dodgy ex-husband (played by Alec Baldwin) was caught pursuing fraudulent financial endeavours and her marriage crumbled. Jasmine is introduced as eccentric and self-involved, linking everything that happens to others back to her