Review: Blue Jasmine (12A)

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Woody Allen has won four Oscars for his direction and writing, and been nominated for a further 19 golden statuettes.
Cate Blanchett in Blue JasmineCate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine
Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine

Cate Blanchett is strongly tipped to win him more with her tour-de-force portrayal of a cuckolded wife in the emotionally wrought comedy drama, Blue Jasmine. The statuesque Australian actress is in almost every frame of Allen’s entertaining film, delivering his zinging dialogue with split-second timing and reducing herself to a blubbering wreck as her heroine’s privileged life in New York crumbles to its foundations after her husband is arrested for his dodgy business dealings. In fragmented flashbacks, we meet Jasmine (Blanchett) during happier times married to businessman Hal (Alec Baldwin). She has little time for her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) or then-brother-in-law Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), who foolishly invest their lottery winnings in one of Hal’s bogus property investment schemes.

Distinguished by Blanchett’s raw and bleakly funny performance, this is one of Allen’s best films on US soil for some time.