Blue Jasmine

Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Stars:
Cate Blanchett … Jasmine
Louis C.K. … Al
Alec Baldwin … Hal
Sally Hawkins … Ginger
Andrew Dice Clay … Augie

This is going to be the opening film for the 2013 Festival, and what an amazing way to begin.
Woody Allen returns to the US to film after the past 3 films have been shot in Europe, but rather than New York this film centers on a woman to heads to San Francisco following a personal crisis where she reconnects with her sister.

This is a movie that I’m excited to see since Allen is a long-time favorite director, and the film contains Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) and Louis C.K. (Louis)

 

Update 09/14/2013

★ ★ ★ ☆ A –
As the film opens we are in an airplane watching a woman named Jasmine, dressed in a white Chanel suit, jewelry and personality all screaming wealth, as she talks nonstop to people that do not know her, nor appear interested in her story. After all, she is not engaging them in an actual conversation; but simply expects them to pay rapt attention as she primarily complains. We follow Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) from the plane to bagage-claim then to a cab, which lets her off in front of a rather seedy apartment in San Franscico. By the time Jasmine exits the taxi, wheeling $10,000 worth of louis vuitton luggage Woody Allen has already provided us with a basic understanding of the backstory forJasmine French as a former New York socialite, whose fall from that world was so complete that she sees no option but to move in with her sister Ginger.

Allen makes it clear that Jasmine not only feels the apartment is not remotely up to her standards but she show no more fondness for her sister than her residence. It becomes clear that Ginger (Sally Hawkins) has always felt envious of her sister, she was the “Pretty one”, the golden-girl, one with a sense of style that helped her land the millionaire husband and the accompanying lifestyle. The story is told is part through flashbacks that reveal her former life and the secrets behind its rise and fall. When you are on top of the world, clearly it’s a long way down, but the film showed us how cut each step of the ladder her rise up allowing no means of slowing her descent.

In one of the flashbacks, we are shown a time when Ginger and her former husband, Augie, (Andrew Dice Clay), had made a rare visit to New York to see her sister.
Jasmine made little secret of her lack of interest in spending time with them; and so her rich husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) sent them off in a limousine to tour the city then paid for a hotel rather than actually spending any time together. The following day at Hal’s country estate Augie proudly told how he had won $200,000 in the lottery and was going to use that money to start his own construction company. It was Jasmine’s idea that Augie invest the total amount in some new, and obvious to the audence, shady business venture. While in New York, Ginger happended upon Hal as he left resteraunt and kissed some other woman, confirming that he was cheating on Jasmine.