Woody Allen
Blue Jasmine

Jasmine in New York was a lazy do-nothing of the high bourgeoisie. One of those caviar, champagne and designer clothes to show off to her ditzy friends in her wealthy estate. Her husband Hal is the one who works, betting on high finance by conning the less fortunate, making enough money to allow his wife to stay home and indulge in luxury. But Hal cheats on her with anything that breathes, then gets caught, lands in jail, commits suicide, and Jasmine loses her mind, flees to San Francisco, and tries to start anew with the little sister she had neglected for many years of her life.

Dear old Woody continues to deliver a film a year, and Blue Jasmine is among his recent ones the most deserving, perhaps the best since the sharp comedy Whatever Works with a legendary Larry David. With Blue Jasmine, Blanchett took home her second Oscar, giving voice and body to a woman who is both hateful and fragile at the same time, the classic half-airhead who just wants to flaunt her wealth and views everyone who cannot afford a Bentley or Hermes scarves as inferior beings. And so Grandpa Woody contrasts Jasmine's high society bravado with the “proletarian” normalcy of her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who finds happiness in little things and turbulent loves like the one for Chili, that Bobby Cannavale already admired in Boardwalk Empire and recently in the series Vinyl, also like BE an HBO creation.

Allen brings to the screen these two different conceptions: those who sip Martini and Gin and those who can afford nothing but shabby beers, those who seek their social status through appearances and those who do not care at all. Two different worlds, opposing and partly contrasted, which are the two souls of Allen's America, he who nonetheless has no problem voting for Clinton and thus taking a political stand with a certain world. The collision of these two different models is an interesting aspect of Blue Jasmine, a sort of sociological insight into contemporary America and its desire to change and adapt to changes. Allen hits the mark but then, as often happens to him and even more recently, he surrenders to clichés that rehash the same old story: the rich only want the love of the rich, the proletarian only wants the love of the proletarian, and so on in a "block" description of society that is increasingly distant from reality. However, what remains is the feeling that in its ostentation of image, status, prestige, American bourgeoisie is crumbling, leaving only the mirrored reflection of its appearances. In this overall view, the final frame becomes a summary of a piece of society and a cinematic analysis that Allen had already begun years and films ago. Everyone can be defeated. The ladder goes up and down.