Woody's back on form

Blue Jasmine (12a)
Running time 98 minutes
Rating:*****
You would think that, with his 80th birthday fast approaching, Woody Allen might consider slowing down a little.
After all, the man has four Oscar wins to his name, plus dozens of nominations along with tons of other plaudits all over the world, and that is just as a film director and writer. He is also an actor, comedian, joke writer, short-story author and has fitted in a very complicated personal life accompanied by not a little controversy.
Still, despite all that, he has produced yet another film that showcases his peerless writing skills, and has given a great actor the chance to show the full range of her considerable talent.
Blue Jasmine – the story of a shallow, insecure woman’s descent into poverty and madness – stars Cate Blanchett, giving the performance of her life as Jasmine, the woman who had everything, apart from much brain power.
Jasmine is married to super-rich Hall (Alec Baldwin), who is actually a crook, but she doesn’t think about where the money comes from so long as it keeps coming for the dresses, holidays, yachts, houses and all the little trinkets supporting the lifestyle of the thoughtless rich of America.
She is a snob, despising her sister Ginger for being poor, unsophisticated and unfashionable, but finds she needs her when her world begins to implode and her so-called friends cut her dead.
Jasmine moves in with Ginger, finds real work is a real bore, dislikes all Ginger’s men for being too poor and slowly begins to suspect, in a deeply shallow sort of way, that her life has no real meaning.
This is a typical theme from super-neurotic Woody Allen, but he and Blanchett pull off a masterpiece, describing a type of modern immorality that is bang up to date.
Alternately slick and swathed in high fashion, then ragged and talking to herself, Jasmine is doomed while the dogged, ordinary, unimaginative people around her manage to survive and stay happy because they have what she doesn’t – a soul.
It’s a film that won’t appeal to everyone – as so many of Woody Allen’s films have shown over the years – because of his furious, neurotic dialogue and the air of mental instability looming over everyone.
However, at only 98 minutes long, everyone could spare the time to see how a master storyteller fashions a tale from seemingly very little and yet manages to say profound things about love, life and the American dream at the same time.
As with most Woody Allen films, he surrounds the stars with a solid supporting cast that gives everyone the chance to shine in what is a little cinematic gem.